I'm no expert in psychology. My initial introduction to modern psychology really turned me off to the discipline and it took many years for me to become interested in it again. Psych 101 started off with Sigmund Freud. Unfortunately, I found Freud's approach to psychology to be narrow and juvenile in its hyper-focus on sexuality as the driver of psychological disturbance. As I've learned more about Freud, I've come to see that he was really quite brilliant. But I still think his underlying model was overly simplistic.
More recently, I've come across Jung (pronounced Yoong) who was contemporary with Freud, but whose opinions diverged from Freud's in a way that I think is really interesting.
Picture of Carl Jung
Keep in mind, this is my attempt to capture only a very small part of Jung's thinking. But I think it's pretty cool.
Ok. Here goes.
Think of the psyche as a canvas. A broad, massive canvas that represents our control of autonomic processes (heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc), sensory inputs (sights, sounds, etc), our imagination, memories, desires, emotions, thoughts, etc. All of this is a canvas. And we'll call it the psyche.
What is written or painted on the canvas is constantly changing. We are continually reinventing ourselves, painting and repainting, whether we are aware of such changes or not. I would guess that we're often not very aware of the changes being made.
Now think of conscious awareness as a light, or lights, that illuminate this canvas. The light covers only a small portion of the canvas at any moment. There may be some areas of the canvas the light can't directly reach. But where it can reach, we see a play of lights that illuminate a complex pattern on the surface of the canvas. And in addition to the dynamic of a constantly evolving painting on the canvas, the illumination pattern from the lights is always moving, always shifting.
Unconsciousness represents whatever isn't illuminated by the light. Whatever portions of the canvas (or psyche) that remain dark.
As a child, I learned about conscious vs subconscious states. And I had a very simple model in my mind. There was a line that divided consciousness from subconsciousness. And that was it. Just a straight line. It never moved. Above the line was consciousness. Below the line was subconsciousness. That was it.
Jung doesn't like the term subconscious. It's easily misinterpreted. It implies something below consciousness. And it probably lends itself to simple, inadequate mental models like the one I had in childhood. Jung thinks a better term is unconscious. There may be things above, below, or wherever, of which we are not aware.
I think the canvas model captures this nuanced understanding of the term unconscious. And it acknowledges the changing nature of the conscious state. We're not consciously aware of the same things all of the time. We shift our attention with an act of will, though our will is limited. Sometimes we can't shift away from certain areas no matter how hard we try. And we can't become aware of others. At least, not through a simple act of will. But within a certain region of our canvas of unconsciousness, we can choose what we want to focus on.
The concept of illuminating a canvas also allows for a blurring of the lines between the two states (conscious vs unconscious). The light diffuses through the air, and the border between light and dark is not a thin line. It's a gradual gradient from light to dark. And I think this is a much more accurate way to think about the two states. Everything in the psyche is both conscious and unconscious to some extent. And the lines separating them are blurry.
The whole canvas is unconscious. And even when the light shines directly on a portion of it, the light varies in intensity, never fully illuminating any portion of the canvas with perfection.
And even the darkest portions of the canvas will still receive some amount of light, however small, due to diffusion of the light through the air and diffuse reflections off the canvas.
A picture that gives some idea of what I have in mind is shown below. It's not perfect, but ... it's the closest thing I could find.
Another thing I like about this model is it places no constraints upon the total amount of light that is available. The area of the canvas covered by our conscious awareness can grow or shrink throughout the day, depending on the time of day, our state of mind, what we eat or drink, as we awaken or fall asleep.
Based on my limited experience with meditation, I think that the practice of meditation may be something that can help us develop a brighter and broader illumination of the canvas. So at any time of day, no matter our physiological state, we can be more awake to ourselves and the world around us. This comes about by developing our mental awareness through a regular practice of meditation.
I'm thinking of two specific types of meditation here. In one, we focus our attention on one specific thing. We exercise our ability to focus our attention and intensify the light of our awareness on one specific piece of the psyche - for example, on breathing. This would be a narrow beam spotlight shining on one very small part of the canvas. And while we allow thoughts to come and go if they want, we maintain our attention on one thing, like the breath. It seems to me this practice helps us focus the light and increase its brightness.
Another type of meditation involves maintaining a calm, constant awareness of anything that wants to arise. With each thought that arises, you hold it in compassionate awareness, allowing it to express itself and to simply be what it is. We can still use the breath to focus our attention, but we're open to watch anything that wants to manifest. In fact, we encourage the chaos to manifest. We just avoid getting caught up in any of it. We watch it, but we don't get consumed by it. This would be like a diffuse illumination of as much of the canvas as possible. And it seems to me this practice helps us, among other things, to expand our ability to illuminate any portion of the psyche we want and bring unconscious elements into conscious awareness.
This is similar to Jung's concept of "active imagination," in which you set the stage with a scene, then tap into your unconsciousness, allowing it to manifest symbols, visions, memories, archetypes, etc. By remaining conscious, in this half-dream state, you can consciously interact with elements of your unconscious in an attempt to understand and better integrate them into your psyche.
The idea here is that many of us actively avoid illuminating certain parts of our canvas. This might be due to fear, guilt, or whatever. But the unconscious continues to paint the canvas in those areas. And without the light of consciousness, those paintings can get ... weird. What remains in the dark is not evil, but it can become unbalanced over time. By facing our demons, with acceptance instead of judgment, we can begin to actively paint those areas. And we can begin to heal. We begin to become whole.
I want to keep thinking about this model. But so far, I think it makes a lot of sense. One major limitation is it doesn't allow for the expansion of the psyche over time. As we mature, our psyche grows and becomes more complicated. Maybe the canvas magically stretches and grows over time?
What do you think? I'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this. Especially if you know anything about psychology. Does this model make sense? Is it weird? Would you make any changes to it? If so, what would you change?
If this model does make sense, then I have one big question (and a few related ones). What exactly is the light of consciousness? Where does it come from? If it's not part of the psyche, what is it? It seems like it's the only thing we can really control. Does that mean it's who we are? If so, what is that? And finally, if it's who we are, is it possible for the light to become aware of itself? Could it illuminate itself? And what would that look like?
