communicate with your subconscious mind ?

I was referring to the Freudian notion of a subconscious -- a "tape recorder" in the back of your head that remembers and stores everything that's ever happened to you, yet is ironically not available to your conscious mind.- Warren

Perhaps the most significant contribution Freud has made to modern thought is his conception of the unconscious. During the 19th century the dominant trend in Western thought was positivism, the claim that people could accumulate real knowledge about themselves and their world, and exercise rational control over both. Freud, however, suggested that these claims were in fact delusions; that we are not entirely aware of what we even think, and often act for reasons that have nothing to do with our conscious thoughts. The concept of the unconscious was groundbreaking in that he proposed that awareness existed in layers and there were thoughts occurring "below the surface." Dreams, called the "royal road to the unconscious", provided the best examples of our unconscious life, and in The Interpretation of Dreams Freud both developed the argument that the unconscious exists, and described a method for gaining access to it.

The Preconscious was described as a layer between conscious and unconscious thought—that which we could access with a little effort. (The term "subconscious" while popularly used, is not actually part of psychoanalytical terminology.) Although there are still many adherents to a purely positivist and rationalist view, most people, including many who reject other elements of Freud's work, accept the claim that part of the mind is unconscious, and that people often act for reasons of which they are not conscious. In a lecture at Clark University in 1910, he explains his new conception of the workings of the human mind and its rejection by fellow professionals and the public. "The arrogance of consciousness which for example rejects dreams so lightly, belongs quite generally, to the strongest protective apparatus which guards us against the breaking through of the unconscious complexes, and as a result it is hard to convince people of the reality of the unconscious, and to teach them anew what their conscious knowledge contradicts."

Crucial to the operation of the unconscious is "repression." According to Freud, people often experience thoughts and feelings that are so painful that people cannot bear them. Such thoughts and feelings—and associated memories—could not, Freud argued, be banished from the mind, but could be banished from consciousness. Thus they come to constitute the unconscious. Although Freud later attempted to find patterns of repression among his patients in order to derive a general model of the mind, he also observed that individual patients repress different things. Moreover, Freud observed that the process of repression is itself a non-conscious act (in other words, it did not occur through people willing away certain thoughts or feelings). Freud supposed that what people repressed was in part determined by their unconscious. In other words, the unconscious was for Freud both a cause and effect of repression....

The problem with the "repressed memories" industry is that studies have shown time and time again that many of the so-called memories are actually implanted (either inadvertently or purposefully) by the interviewer during these periods of openness and hypnosis.

- Warren

I don't believe Freud ever proposed anything like this.

Steve Porter
Was Freud wrong?


Psychology Professor Steve Porter (Pearce photo).
In the late 19th century, Sigmund Freud developed his famous theory about how some people recall horrific traumatic events. To cope, people repress memories of such events so their painful effects won’t have to be experienced over and over again.
But a new study by Dalhousie researchers Steve Porter and Kristine Peace suggests otherwise — that victims can recall the details of traumatic events such as physical or sexual assault with as much clarity as the day they happened. Their study is due to be published in the journal Psychological Science.

“If Freud was right, these would be the kind of events that people would try to push away,�? says Dr. Porter, associate professor in the Department of Psychology. “People tried to push them away but were unable to do so. They were, in fact, haunted by what they experienced.�?

On the other hand, the same study found people’s recall of pleasant memories — weddings, births, awards — wasn’t nearly as good.

“The positive memories changed dramatically and began to look very little like the event itself,�? says Dr. Porter. “So, if people start to tell you about the good ol’ days, you might want to take that with a grain of salt.�?

The findings are of particular interest for court cases that involve historical complaints of assault, abuse and violence.

"We can expect that traumatic criminal experiences can be recalled quite reliably over time," says Dr. Porter. "That doesn't mean there won't be some level of distortion. But the central details will be recalled quite well."

The study took place over five years. In 2000, researchers recorded the memories of participants concerning both a traumatic and positive memory. The participants were re-interviewed three months and five years later.

Dr. Porter’s research group (which includes graduate students Marcus Juodis and Sabrina Bellhouse, and honours students Leanne ten Brinke and Laura England) is now embarking on research on concealed emotions. The research, which will examine the facial expressions of people when they’re disguising their emotions, is supported by a Discovery grant from National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and an operating grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

I've heard the tape recorder theory so many times, usually attributed to Freud. So he never said such a thing after all?
Any idea who did start the whole tape-recorder thing? I've heard the most ridiculous stories, like that people under hypnosis can remember the door to their childhood home down the most minute scratch and stain.

I think the reason Freud has turned into fair game is because there are so many quack psychologists out there. I was talking with my parents about it the other day (sparked by the "is psychology a pseudo-science" thread from PF actually ), and it's part of why my dad has decided to leave the field for good. They feel it has lost its way. There are too many psychologists out there that are either poorly qualified, looking to make a quick buck, or just completely nuts.
My mom still wants to keep practicing. But my dad is completely frustrated with the field and the way it's going. All the nuts doing mystic healing and crap like that get all the press coverage, while people doing real research are barely even mentioned in the news.
That's a completely different topic though.

then again, in most cases, the complete oposite is true:

Childhood abuse and other extreme stressors can have lasting effects on brain areas involved in memory and emotion. The hippocampus is a brain area involved in learning and memory that is particularly sensitive to stress.8,9 As reviewed in greater detail by Bruce McEwen in other Cyberounds high levels of glucocorticoids (cortisol in the human) released during stress were associated with damage to neurons in the CA3 region of the hippocampus, and a loss of neurons and dendritic branching.10,11,12 Glucocorticoids disrupt cellular metabolism and increase the vulnerability of hippocampal neurons to excitatory amino acids like glutamate.13 Other neurochemical systems interact with glucocorticoids to mediate the effects of stress on memory and the hippocampus, including serotonin14 and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).15,16 Stress also results in deficits in new learning that are secondary to damage to the hippocampus.17,18 Exciting recent research has shown that the hippocampus has the capacity to regenerate neurons and that stress inhibits neurogenesis in the hippocampus.19

Many abuse victims claim to remember only certain aspects of the abuse event. For instance, a patient who was locked in the closet had an isolated memory of the smell of old clothes and the sound of a clock ticking. Later, she connected that with feelings of intense fear and, then, the entire circumstances relating to the abusive events

The notion we have a perfect tape recorder in out brains probably arose from the discoveries of Wilder Penfield who found that stimulating various parts of the brain with a small voltage seemed to evoke remarkably clear and intact memories of childhood. This discovery got widely published and astonished a lot of people.

In fact, though, the people he was doing this to were all epileptics (whose skulls had been opened for surgery), and in cases where it was tried later on non-epileptics it didn't seem to work. Pennfield therefore, strongly began to suspect that the "memories" he initially evoked weren't authentic at all, but pseudo-memories created on the spot from elements of real memory by virtue of the fact that the neurons of epileptics are vastly more "touchy" than those of non-epileptics (google: "the kindling effect" or maybe "neuronal kindling").

The notion that we store every minute detail of our lives in memory is the erroneous notion that lives on from Penfield's work and I suppose it is repeated by hypnotists for the simple reason it serves their purpose. That has nothing to do with Freud, and Freud is not responsible for any erroneous associations of this idea with his theories of mind.


The reason Freud is fair game is because he raised the subject of sex at a time when sex was taboo: it was clear to him that the content and subject matter of dreams and the things that drove neurotic behaviors were all those things we automatically repress from our conscious mind during the day. At that time, mores being what they were, this mostly meant sexual things. It was important to most to maintain the status quo and Freud had to be denigrated, made to appear silly or everyone would have to face the fact they were all very much more sexual than social and religious pretence allowed them to admit. He was somewhat in the position of someone who wants to criticize a dictator while the dictator is still in power and most people's energies are monopolized by trying to obey the dictator. The habit of criticizing him without reading what he'd written became firmly instituted and continues to this day, despite the fact, strangely, that we can all be very much more open about sex because of Freud.

thanks. great info.

I also never though of it from that point of view, I guess I'm too used to modern society and it didn't even occur to me.
I think some of his writing is interesting even if you're not interested in psychology. He was very artistic in the way he wrote sometimes. It wasn't boring and dry (well, some of it was).
I can't say I've read a lot straight from him though, mostly books that reference him or have the odd quote. I have his complete works, leather bound, in 4 volumes sitting on my library and I read a bit from it sometimes. They're in spanish and I find spanish a bit hard to read when its too dense; I'll probably get it in English at some point.
It's also incredible HOW MUCH he wrote. It's endless.