Michael Crichton once thought his unconscious mind was trying to kill him

joshwhiton.com

10 points·aspirant··4 comments

Jungianism calls this the 'self' (I believe; not a Jungian); the wider potential human that you aren't being. Andrew Hodges a psychiatrist discovered something like what's described, too ('Deeper Intelligence'), a subconscious concern with integrity and boundaries.

Right. Usually the Jungian usage is written 'Self' with a capital 'S'.

I quite believe in it now and looking back, credit it as the source that allowed me to quit various dead-end jobs, even when they paid a lot and were held in high regard by everyone around me. My ego said, "Hey, be content this is a great job!" But the Self doesn't care how much money a job makes. It cares about 'individuation' and growth.

This is part of a theme I've been writing about lately. It seems that many people reach a point in life where they begin to experience the unconscious mind as a distinct and separate intelligence from their conscious mind.

For me it started when I began to view the unconscious mind as a separate processor I could offload work to. But since then things have snowballed and I've found that the unconscious can behave, not just like another processor, but like a whole other person. And apparently I'm not the only one.

At any rate, these past few months spent hacking my mind has been quite a ride.

If you're interested in this area, you should explore the work of Milton Erickson, who was a great pioneer of interaction with the unconscious mind.

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