Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

rs

Member Since

October 14, 2013

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

1

Bio

Latest Comments

subconscious vs unconscious

  • October 14, 2013, 4:56pm

Get over Freud and Jung. This conversation has been going on for centuries. Though, it's been framed using slightly different terminology through perception and awareness.

Personally, I've understood consciousness as spectrum of degrees of awareness:

Your conscious is composed of what you are currently aware of.
For example: reading these words.


Your subconscious is whatever you are not currently aware of, but have the ability to become aware of.
For example: memories, dreams, your phone number, language not in use, etc...

Unconsciousness is whatever you do not have the ability to become aware of.

I guess, if I were breaking it down, I'd take "conscious" to mean "skill of perception." This would make "sub-concious" mean something like "less skilled perception," and "unconscious" to mean "no skill of perception."