Levels of Unconscious: From Procedural Memory to Collective Psyche

After a certain number of times the physical body is perfectly trained to perform the task autonomously. In this case the process does not require the cooperation of consciousness and remains at an unconscious level, as long as it is not necessary to alter the established procedural memory. Thus an individual can peacefully talk with a friend while driving and be conscious only of the ideas and emotions that are transmitted in the conversation, without remembering, except with effort, the driving actions undertaken or even the specific words pronounced in the conversation. All these details remain in the lower unconscious, which however is hidden according to its discoverer Sherrington, Charles Scott (1906). The integrative action of the nervous system. Yale University Press. Sometimes pathological states can occur in which proprioception is fallacious, as reported in Oliver Sacks. The Disembodied Lady. 1986. It is a vigilant entity, ready to take over and push the driver to sudden braking if an accident or unexpected obstacle should present itself. It has much faster access to the nervous system and can be educated, meticulously, allowing the execution of tasks with a speed and precision that would not be possible if consciousness were involved. The lower unconscious is not only procedural memory, but the personal basin and receptacle of instincts coming from the collective unconscious. Among these is renowned the paradox of the baseball player. Learning to hit a baseball has been defined as "the most difficult task to perform in a sport". It requires years of preparatory training and then practice to reach the confidence necessary for the game, yet once the training is completed, the body is capable in a fraction of a second of consciously coordinating hands, arms, legs to hit a ball at a speed exceeding 150 km/h following a barely predictable trajectory. In the process of discriminating the ball's trajectory, conscious activity constitutes a possible hindrance (cf. Sherwin, J; Muraskin, J; Sajda, P. 2012. You can't think and hit at the same time: neural correlates of baseball pitch classification. Front. Neurosci., 19 December 2012). By the term instinct we mean a set of functionally connected actions directed toward a purpose: mating, attacking a predator, fleeing from prey, raising cubs, their breeding etc. These actions, while varying from individual to individual, all follow the same pattern that belongs to the species of belonging and thus, in the case of humans, to the collective unconscious. The Middle Unconscious The middle unconscious is formed by psychic elements of a nature similar to those of consciousness and most of them are easily accessible to it. Here occurs the psychic gestation of processes that subsequently surface to consciousness. In the middle unconscious, complexes ramify that acquire an articulated emotional structure and play the role of powerful motivations in relation to the individual's thought and behavior. This is the unconscious closest to consciousness and most personal. The Atavistic Unconscious The atavistic unconscious is formed by everything that precedes this specific incarnation of individuality, that is, by what transcends personality as a whole. In it are found archaic predispositions, atavistic vices, inclinations, vocations. It can, in a certain sense, be associated with destiny. Meticulous investigations of spontaneous memories occurring in children between 2 and 5 years old have led to the estimate that about 1 child in 500 possesses spontaneous memories of a previous life (Stevenson, I. Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects 2 vols. Praeger. 1997). The result is the observation that, at least for some individuals, reincarnation is a phenomenon that has occurred (Stevenson, I. Past lives of twins. The Lancet. Volume 353, issue 9161 p1359-1360. 1999). These memories or their repressions reside in the atavistic unconscious from whose roots develop complexes that reach the middle unconscious and consciousness with conditionings, inclinations, phobias, inspirations. Access to this atavistic unconscious presupposes constituting a bridge between individuality and personality that is normally precluded and that can be crossed only under special conditions (Palamidessi, T. 1969. La memoria delle vite passate e la sua tecnica. Roma: Archeosofica). The Collective Unconscious Psychic processes and functions existed long before there was an ego consciousness. Since, in Jung's words, no one presents himself as a totally new product, but always renews the last stage of development previously reached, he unconsciously contains the entire psychic structure that has developed little by little, in one sense or another, in the ranks of his ancestors (Jung, K. G. Bewusstein, Unbewusstes und Individuation. Zentralblatt fur Psychotherapie und ihre Grenzgebiete (Leipzig), vol. 11, N. 5, 257-70 (1939)). This psychic structure is the collective unconscious. In the collective unconscious are found psychic elements common to the entire human race. It is a psychic heritage made of deep dynamisms and symbols common to all Humanity without distinction of culture or race. If it is the repository of all human experiences up to the most obscure beginnings, it is nevertheless not a dead deposit nor a desolate field of ruins, but a living system ready to react, which, through invisible and very active ways, regulates individual life. The collective unconscious is not only a gigantic historical prejudice, but is also the source of instincts (Jung, K. G. 1959. Il problema dell'inconscio nella psicologia moderna, Einaudi, Torino). The collective unconscious emerges and is in continuous contact with an even deeper unconscious which is the comprehensive panpsychic Universe comprising the collective psyche of individual animal species, that of plants, and even of animals. In the absence of this psychic structure, communication between animal and man, however difficult, would not be possible. That the psyche of individual animal species is potentially enclosed in a "group soul" is evident.