Traditional psychology, even Jungian psychology, has differentiated the parts of consciousness into conscious and unconscious processes. Most people believe that they are two separate aspects of the mind. Conscious processes are usually thought of as waking or aware states, and unconscious processes are usually considered to be sleeping states or times when the mind is not aware. Additionally, psychology places another meaning on the unconscious, calling it the psychic structure where unwanted parts of ourselves are hidden or repressed. Indeed, Jung claimed that the unconscious has its own different way of perceiving and thinking, and he postulated a collective unconscious where all archetypes of humankind reside. Freud said that all of our instincts and thoughts from the Id, as well as all of our repressed childhood memories reside in the unconscious, and that it takes years of psychotherapy to plumb the depths and reveal the contents of the unconscious (Welwood, 2000).

This separation of consciousness and the unconscious makes it difficult to contemplate befriending the unconscious and tapping into its vast unknown realm. Welwood (2000) proposes that we need a new understanding of conscious and unconscious processes. A friendlier viewpoint will help us take advantage of the tools of transformative practice such as active imagination, dreams, meditation, and nondualistic experiences of transcendence. He believes that consciousness and the unconscious are not two separate regions of the psyche, but instead they are two different ways of structuring our way of relating to the world. The unconscious organizes experience holistically, outside the normal span of focal attention. It experiences the underlying interconnectedness of things. It does not reflect or think on things. It merely experiences, and it is neither dark nor unknowable. Consciousness, on the other hand, organizes experience focally, meaning that the individual focuses on objects, one at a time. Conscious processes separate objects into this and that, either/or, black/white, past/future. It is only by recognizing objects and naming them that we see their separateness. Indeed, the child spends its time differentiating objects in Piaget’s first stage of development.

The unconscious operates in the background of the experience. When an item is brought out of the background and into focal attention, conscious awareness recognizes it. Welwood (2000) also posits a third type of conscious attention called diffuse attention, where the whole field is experienced at once. This reaches its fullest expression in meditation or spiritual states when the subjective self and objective world dissolve into a larger field of awareness. Diffuse attention is always present. However it is only fully experienced in transcendent or meditative states when the subject/object division that is normally experienced in consciousness dissolves into a larger field of awareness. This is the experience of unity or oneness.

Conscious and unconscious processes can be understood by thinking about the figure/ground dynamic. When something is unfamiliar, it comes into conscious awareness as an object or figure of interest. We attend to it and study it. Once it is familiar, it fades into the background and becomes a part of the unconscious process. Liken this to driving along a familiar road to reach a familiar destination. Driving itself becomes an unconscious process as the mind wanders to other thoughts. We reach our destination and might reflect to ourselves that we do not remember the trip at all. However, when we encounter an unfamiliar occurrence, like a new sign or construction site or a change in the landscape, and the new figure pops into conscious awareness, we focus on the object, and we become aware of our driving and of the trip. We ‘wake up’ to what we are doing. This is what Welwood (2000) is referring to – that conscious and unconscious are two sides of the same process, and the unconscious serves as the background for the differentiated objects in conscious awareness. This implies that the unconscious is always available to conscious awareness if we know how to tap into it. It is not the dark hidden part of ourselves, as Freud would have us believe.

Indeed, it is even possible for us to become conscious or awake in all states that are traditionally thought of as unconscious. Individuals who practice lucid dreaming are able to wake up in the dream state when they are sleeping. In lucid dreaming, the dreamer becomes consciously aware that she is dreaming, and she is able to consciously direct the activity of the dream.

Welwood (2000) defines three levels of consciousness:

1. Surface level – focal attention, where the ego operates and differentiates between objects, fixing attention on one object after another. This is the content of consciousness.
2. Body-mind level – holistic sensing that takes place through diffuse attention. It can tune into subtle energy, intuition, and a sense of interrelatedness with all of creation. It senses the larger patterns and flows of the universe rather than focusing on the objects of the universe. This is called the mindstream.
3. Non-conceptual awareness – our true nature, the silent Witness that is the ground of all experience and is impossible to grasp with the mind. It is our deeper Self, the experiencer. It is the part of us that we are referring to when we ask the question, ‘Who is experiencing the words that my eyes are reading right now?’ This is the part of us that is self-aware.

Welwood (2000) also suggests three levels of unconscious processes:

1. Situational Ground (preconscious) – this is the felt sense described by Eugene Gendlin. It is the background or the ‘fuzzy feel’ that we experience about life and toward what we are doing at any point in time. It includes unspecific understanding that lies at the background of conscious awareness. It is always back there, waiting to be consciously acknowledged and brought into the foreground. Gendlin’s Focusing taps into this background awareness. See Appendix G for a synopsis of the Focusing process.
2. Personal Ground – this is wider than Situational Ground. It is the personal unconscious that includes all the events that have shaped our personal self. These influence our experiences in an unconscious way. Dreams are included in this unconscious process, as are any inherent insights that seem to rise from personal experience. This part of the unconscious can be accessed through such processes as Active Imagination, which has been described in Appendix G.
3. Transpersonal Ground – this includes a bodily orientation to the world and the forward direction or movement of the individual. By this, we refer to the fact that the very nature of our physical organism influences how we perceive and place meaning on the world. It also refers to the creative or insightful aspect of ourselves. It includes our visionary quality. It bubbles up from unknown or unconscious places, and it reflects the deep structure of our human makeup, the Soul qualities or virtues that are a part of our human potential. This is the creative or intuitive part of ourself, and it can be accessed by rising into transpersonal states of awareness and opening to our intuitive nature. Meditation is an activity that taps into this realm.

Underlying both conscious and unconscious states is the Basic Open Ground, which is called awareness. One cannot speak about awareness, because it has no definition or separation. When we begin to speak about it, we move from definitionless awareness to the separation of objects or states that occurs in consciousness. Awareness is the presence, the state of no-thing, before it is differentiated into duality. This experience is going on all the time, but we simply do not notice it (Welwood, 2000).

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