Conscious and Subconscious: Division and Conflict

Everyone is in the midst of a war and negotiation between the conscious and the subconscious—

The growth of human consciousness is a great achievement of life on Earth. Animal consciousness is extremely low-level, they act mainly on subconscious instincts; one of the important differences between humans and animals is that they know what they are doing, have independent thoughts and wills. Since human beings formed a more complex cognitive structure, the written history is only a few thousand years. Before and after the birth of the concept of knowledge, the subconscious mind has always accompanied and influenced the survival of human beings. The unconscious flow of spiritual energy follows the power of instinct, which means that the subconscious mind has been playing a decisive role for millions of years. The subconscious mind is one's innerr, deeper self, which contains millions of years of wisdom. Bees are born knowing where to collect honey and how to build nests; animals' innate instincts allow them to know what to do and how to do it. The human subconscious can also contribute to the self-realization of the individual through the evaluation process of the organism. Everyone is a unity of the joint coordination of the conscious and subconscious minds, and without the synergistic work of the conscious and subconscious, it is impossible for people to live and learn normally.

The operation of spiritual energy must have its own internal purpose and law, because human development is not conscious, but in the direction of evolution. Marx studied the dialectical character of the movement of matter, pointing out that nature is alive and consciousness is an intrinsic property of matter, thus enabling us to abandon the rigidity of the metaphysical worldview. It can be argued that nature is not a rigid machine, and that the world itself is inherently conscious and alive. Thus, when the wave of consciousness of the individual human being rises alone from the ocean of the subconscious, it remains trapped in the torrent of the collective subconscious. The collective subconscious, the source of consciousness, the partner of consciousness, is still secretly directing the ups and downs of spiritual energy; and the human consciousness, as her child, has just grown up, and many times cannot resist her pressure or seduction.

With the emergence and function of cognitive structure, individuals gradually form a more stable mode of spiritual energy flow in the process of growth, and have a unique personality. In this way, people's spiritual energy becomes an independent system, relatively isolated from the outside world, and it is possible to lose normal contact and communication with others and foreign objects in a closed state. Consciousness splits from the subconscious, which is the root of how people often feel lonely and small, and we are eager to return to the past state of being in harmony with the world and one with nature. In Fromm's view, human existence thus has a deep contradiction or duality: he desires independence and freedom, and on the other hand, he is obsessed with the carefreeness of childhood, and often wants to escape the burden of reason. The Dream of Eden is the eternal pursuit of mankind in turmoil. So we have two choices: to move forward and find new ways to merge with the world; or to go backwards, to return to the animal state, to let instinct dominate and abandon consciousness again. Which of the two roads is better? It seems that the first path should be chosen; but we examine the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious and find that the conflict between the two is not irreconcilable.

Because of the independent and dynamic characteristics of consciousness itself, man has a great deal of freedom. We can have our own subjective desires and goals, and we can support and regulate our own energy flow to a certain extent. The conscious and subconscious minds thus constitute a contradiction between a pair that sometimes live in harmony and sometimes struggle with each other. Since the destinations of the two may not be the same, and both sides are vying for dominance of spiritual energy, there is a deep split in the human soul, and spiritual problems arise. However, if we can have correct judgment and reasonable regulation, the conscious and subconscious minds are fully able to live in harmony and cooperate with each other. The appropriate solution is to make the effort of the conscious mind meet the requirements of the collective subconscious, and under the strong impetus of the subconscious, it can move forward faster and better.

The humanistic psychoanalyst Rogers argues that man has a tendency to self-actualize and the evaluation process of organisms. The tendency to self-actualize is a central energy source of the human organism, it is the embodiment of the essence of life, and it is a strong tendency to grow. Rogers said: "The most impressive fact that human beings seem to be developing in the direction of directional potential. The organism's own ability to evaluate experience, called "body intelligence," is consistent with the tendency to self-actualize. We combine this theory with the subconscious point of view to conclude that it is the inner subconscious mind of the human being that enables the individual to use the intelligence of the body to advance toward self-actualization goals. However, society, through the conditionalization of values, forcibly instills into its members ideas that do not really explain individual experience, causing him to form inappropriate cognitive structures. When a person generates erroneous or one-sided thoughts and accepts their guidance, the effort of consciousness will fundamentally deviate from the subconscious goal and move against the tide. At that time, the spiritual energy is cut off from the whole, and the spontaneous impedance will make people powerless and unsustainable--people are either completely impossible to succeed, or the achievements lack a foundation, and they cannot avoid troubles and pain. In Rogers's view, this is the incongruity between self-concept and experience, which is the essence of psychological disorder; in the language of rong format, they show the conflict and opposition between the conscious and subconscious. This is also the contradiction between the internal law of the operation of spiritual energy and the one-sidedness of individual consciousness, so rational cognitive therapy can focus on cognition and solve problems from conceptual thoughts.

The development of human consciousness should be consistent with the goal of the collective subconscious; the regulation of spiritual energy by individuals must be supported by the subconscious. The essence of mental illness and psychological disorders is the conflict between the consciousness and the subconscious, and if the contradictions and struggles between the two sides are not resolved for a long time, they will easily evolve into neuroses. General psychological disorders are manifested as consciousness, but consciousness cannot control itself, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, involuntarily falling into a ridiculous thought, or doing the same behavior repeatedly without reason, and I also know that this should not be done, but I can't influence my thoughts and actions, as if something in the underworld forces him. Severe mentally ill people are manifested as loss of rationality, allowing the spontaneous impulses of the subconscious mind to dominate, and consciousness basically loses its role. This is the reaction of the subconscious mind to the long-term wrong development of consciousness, and it is the inevitable regression and counterattack of spiritual energy after being forced to run in an irrational direction to a certain extent. In severe cases, it leads to mental disorders, a total breakdown of the will.