Unconscious Quotes

“The unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it―we become unconscious of ourselves. That is the age-old danger, instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself stands so very close to this pleroma. His consciousness is still uncertain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does things that are strange to him. Hence primitives are afraid of uncontrolled emotions, because consciousness breaks down under them and gives way to possession. All man's strivings have therefore been directed towards the consolidation of consciousness. This was the purpose of rite and dogma; they were dams and walls to keep back the dangers of the unconscious, the "perils of the soul." Primitive rites consist accordingly in the exorcising of spirits, the lifting of spells, the averting of the evil omen, propitiation, purification, and the production by sympathetic magic of helpful occurrences."―from_Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious_”

“They say that the personal transformation that gives rise to self-realization – the transcendent function that leads to the highest echelon of human attainment – takes place on the border between consciousness and unconsciousness, and that when we dream we dissolve the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. In other words, we dream a world into being, and we are the collective product of our lifetime of immanent dreams. If the oracles are correct, I dreamed you into being, and you represent the real point of intersection between dream and reality.”

“The only thing that science cannot discover is that we all have an unconscious Heart just like an unconscious mind. There comes a moment in our life when our mind and heart says one thing but still we do the other one because in our heart of hearts we know what we want. It is just that.. that we are still unaware of it and the unconscious heart knows it all.”

“All of us share conscious recognition of our individual self. Each of us is more than a product of our conscious thoughts. The dictation of our unconscious mind also affects our behavior. The unconsciousness cogitates upon problems that are too harsh to submit to conscious resolution. The unconscious mind frequently directs us to take action that a rational, conscious mind would eschew. Resembling a two-sided coin, both our conscious and unconscious minds contribute to our thought processes. Collaborative thoughts lead to action, and repeated actions result in the development of behavior patterns, and ingrained behavior patterns lead to a sense of identity.”

“Everything with no exception is a choice. The choice can be either conscious or unconscious depending on the level of self-awareness. The more self-aware we become, the faster we can make our unconscious choices known to us.”

“We die unconsciously, we are born unconsciously and we live unconsciously as well”

“A person can only see their shadow if they awaken their eclectic soul. Self-understanding commences by admitting to the shadowy presence of the primordial unconsciousness. The unconscious mind is a magical concoction of logical and irrational thoughts and feelings.”

“[B]y reinterpreting Freudianism in terms of language, a pre-eminently social activity, Lacan permits us to explore the relations between the unconscious and human society. One way of describing his work is to say that he makes us recognize that the unconscious is not some kind of seething, tumultuous, private region ‘inside’ us, but an effect of our relations with one another. The unconscious is, so to speak, ‘outside’ rather than ‘within’ us — or rather it exists ‘between’ us, as our relationships do.”

“Man can be categorized into three levels on social strata: One who are Consciously Unconscious, second who are Unconsciously Conscious - while both are inter-dependent for their survival; the third by and large a rare breed, Consciously Conscious sect – who don’t ever relate to this world!”