Waking Up to the Unconscious

Below text is from Robert A. Johnson's book "Inner Work". He perfectly explains one of the true mysteries of humans:unconscious

One morning a woman got into her car as usual and drove several miles to her office. Along the way her imagination began to produce a great adventure. She saw herself in olden times, a simple woman living in the midst of wars and and crusades. She became a heroine, saved her people by strength and sacrifice, encountered a strong and noble prince who loved her.

With her conscious mind thus totally occupied, she drove along the several streets, stopped at traffic lights, signaled properly at each turn, and arrived safely at her office parking lot. Coming to her senses, she realized that she couldn't remember any of the drive to the office. She recalled not a single intersection or turn. Her startled mind asked:"How could I drive this far without being aware of it? Where was my mind? Who was driving while I was dreaming? But things like that happened before, so she dropped the subject and went on into the office.

At her desk she began to plan her day's work, but she was interrupted by a colleague who came storming into her office, threw down a memorandum she had circulated, and went into a rage over some minor point he disagreed with. She was astonished. His anger was so disproportionate to the size of the issue! What had come over him?

He , in turn, hearing his own raised voice, realized he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Embarrassed, he mumbled an apology and backed out. In his own office he asked himself:"What came over me? Where did it that come from? I don't usually get rattled over little things. I just wasn't myself?" He sensed that there was a boiling anger within him that had nothing to do with his friend's memorandum but had suddenly come to the surface over this petty matter. Where the anger came from, he didn't know.

If these two people had time to think about it, they might realize that they had already felt the presence of the unconscious in their lives that morning. In dozens of ways in the ebb and flow of ordinary life, we experience the unconscious as it acts in us and through us.