3. Middle Unconscious
The middle unconscious is the subliminal subconscious regions that correspond to the Freudian preconscious. It includes the subliminal streams of consciousness “beyond the margins” (James’s phrase) of the field of consciousness in which various consciously available psychological, cognitional, and imaginal experiences are assimilated, elaborated, or developed beneath the surface of awareness prior to their entry into the open but narrowly focused field of consciousness.
Represents “present” time. The middle unconscious represents the present, the most immediate level of unconscious material, and the “anteroom” of conscious awareness. “It is in this area that memories that are easily brought to mind are stored, that our everyday lives are routinely processed” (Hardy, 1987, p. 25). “Consciousness is the spotlight which, sweeping the area, lights up just that area on which it falls. Everything outside its illumination, but within its range, is preconsciousness” (Stafford-Clark, 1965, p. 115). “The middle unconscious is where all skills and states of mind reside which can be brought at will into our field of consciousness, which – for you at this moment – is this book and the words you are reading” (Ferrucci, 1982, p. 43).
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4. Lower Unconscious
The lower unconscious contains Freudian drives and primitive urges and Jungian image-idea “complexes” charged with intense emotions. This is the inner subconscious region of the Freudian unconscious and the Jungian personal unconscious. It includes elementary actions and impulses of the psyche that direct and coordinate autonomic physiological functioning as well as voluntary bodily movements.
Where daydreams come from. The lower subconscious includes the transmarginal realm of consciousness in which daydreams and fantasies and spontaneous parapsychological processes originate. It includes the deeper regions of consciousness from which erupt various pathological disorders including phobias, obsessions, compulsive urges and paranoid delusions. The lower unconscious represents our personal psychological past – prior learning and adaptations, strong libidinal sexual and aggressive forces of the id (the drives) and the superego (the conscience), long-forgotten childhood memories, and, repressed complexes. “The distinction between the ‘lower’ and the ‘higher’ unconscious, or superconscious, is developmental, not moralistic. The lower unconscious merely represents the most primitive part of ourselves, the beginner in us, so to speak. It is not bad, it is just earlier” (Ferrucci, 1982, p. 44
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