Unconscious thought operates with a systematic logical structure of its own.
In other words, it has its own internal logic — which is different from the
logic used by consciousness. It uses symmetric logic, according to Blanco.6
Using this logic, the ordinary concepts of cause and effect; time and space
are over-turned. We are confronted with an absence of mutual contradic-
tion and negation; and timelessness.
According to Jehning, psychoanalysts have tended to focus on vari-
ous detail aspects of Freud’s work while disregarding the fundamental and
disturbing implications of the idea that the mind (in this context, the con-
scious left brain) works within a framework of timelessness and spaceless-
ness (i.e. within the environment of the intuitive right brain and the ‘uni-
versal mind’).
Unconscious thinking unites or unifies things which for ‘ordinary
thinking’ are distinct and separated. Relations within the unconscious are
symmetrical, for instance: ‘Mary is different from Clara,’ or ‘A is identical to
B’; they remain true when they are inverted. To use mathematical terminol-
ogy, they are ‘commutative.’
The ‘unconscious’ is characterised by an increasing prevalence of sym-
metry. At the ‘surface’ there is a mixture of asymmetric and symmetric
logic (i.e. both commutative and non-commutative operations apply) but
the ‘deeper’ you go into the unconscious, the more symmetrical it becomes.
Blanco distinguished different ‘strata’ in the mind — the ‘deeper’ the uncon-
scious, the higher the degree of symmetry.
Blanco also noted that the ‘unconscious’ was timeless, placeless, uses
symbols and imagery, appositional, unable to distinguish between hard and
fluid reality (or fantasy) and between the part and the whole; and uses a
combination of symmetric and asymmetric logic.7 It will be immediately
noticed that all the attributes of the unconscious described by Blanco are
identical to the characteristics of the right brain noted in various experi-
ments cited previously.
In other words, it has its own internal logic — which is different from the
logic used by consciousness. It uses symmetric logic, according to Blanco.6
Using this logic, the ordinary concepts of cause and effect; time and space
are over-turned. We are confronted with an absence of mutual contradic-
tion and negation; and timelessness.
According to Jehning, psychoanalysts have tended to focus on vari-
ous detail aspects of Freud’s work while disregarding the fundamental and
disturbing implications of the idea that the mind (in this context, the con-
scious left brain) works within a framework of timelessness and spaceless-
ness (i.e. within the environment of the intuitive right brain and the ‘uni-
versal mind’).
Unconscious thinking unites or unifies things which for ‘ordinary
thinking’ are distinct and separated. Relations within the unconscious are
symmetrical, for instance: ‘Mary is different from Clara,’ or ‘A is identical to
B’; they remain true when they are inverted. To use mathematical terminol-
ogy, they are ‘commutative.’
The ‘unconscious’ is characterised by an increasing prevalence of sym-
metry. At the ‘surface’ there is a mixture of asymmetric and symmetric
logic (i.e. both commutative and non-commutative operations apply) but
the ‘deeper’ you go into the unconscious, the more symmetrical it becomes.
Blanco distinguished different ‘strata’ in the mind — the ‘deeper’ the uncon-
scious, the higher the degree of symmetry.
Blanco also noted that the ‘unconscious’ was timeless, placeless, uses
symbols and imagery, appositional, unable to distinguish between hard and
fluid reality (or fantasy) and between the part and the whole; and uses a
combination of symmetric and asymmetric logic.7 It will be immediately
noticed that all the attributes of the unconscious described by Blanco are
identical to the characteristics of the right brain noted in various experi-
ments cited previously.
