Unconscious Mind

The Unconscious Mind consists chiefly of the mental processes that occur automatically in the body (breathing, heart rate, etc.) that are not readily available to conscious control or introspection. Psychological research since the 19th century suggests that the unconscious mind also controls the phenomena of repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, thoughts, habits and automatic reactions as well as possibly holding emotional complexes, phobias and desires.

Psychoanalytic theory holds that that these unconscious processes can come to the surface as symbols in dreams, automatic thoughts (thoughts that occur without an apparent cause) and in “slips of the tongue.”