Subconscious Mind
Subconscious Mind
(Lat. sub, under — cum together + scire to know) A compartment of the mind alleged by certain psychologists and philosophers (see Psycho-analysis) to exist below the threshold of consciousness. The subconscious, though not directly accessible to introspection (see Introspection), is capable of being tapped by special techniques such as random association, dream-analysis, automatic writing, etc. The doctrine of the subconscious was foreshadowed in Leibniz’s doctrine of petites perceptions (Monadology, Sections 21, 23) and received philosophical expression by A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, and E. von Hartman, Philosophy of the Unconscious and has become an integral part of Freudian psychology. See Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, esp. pp. 425-35, 483-93. — L.W.