Types of repression

The ego has its one internal, silent and invisible measures, known as defense mechanisms to curb the ‘id’. These measures are not visible and can only be known retroactively, like repression, for example.

Our basic and primal instincts are regulated by our ego, and our more moral and idealistic standards, set by the superego, are also kept under check. The ego operates in the preconscious, unconscious and conscious states of the mind. Example: The ego is a safety valve that prevents us from getting out of the car and attacking the driver that has offended us for some reason, however satisfying that may seem at the moment.

"The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions."

Psychology was not separate from philosophy until the late 1800s.

• During the 17th century, philosopher Rene Descartes introduced the idea of dualism - that the mind and body were two entities that interact to complete the human experience.
• While early philosophers relied on methods such as observation and logic, today's psychologists use scientific methodologies to draw conclusions about human thought and behavior.
• Physiological research on the brain and behavior also contributes to psychology.

• During the mid-1800s, a German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt outlined many of the major connections between the science of physiology and the study of human thought and behavior.
• He viewed psychology as the study of human consciousness and tried to apply experimental methods to study internal mental processes.
• His processes are known as introspection and seen as unreliable and unscientific today, but it helped to set the stage for future experimental methods.
• The opening of his psychology lab In 1879 is considered to be the official start of psychology as a separate scientific discipline.

Aphantasia was first described in the early 1800s by Francis Galton in a paper on mental imagery. It was not until 2015 that the phenomenon was further studied and the term was coined.

One of the major studies was with a patient who had undergone a minor surgery in 2005 and later could no longer generate visual images within the ‘mind’s eye’. The details of the study were published in 2010, which led to many others coming up with similar symptoms.

This was a technique used by the researchers to help test the image forming inside the brain of the individuals.

The experiment led to the finding that a recent viewing of an image had no correlation with the imagining of the image.

Unconscious actions serve an evolutionary purpose. And they make our lives easier in many ways.

*When you're reading something for example, your mind is also filtering a huge amount of sensory information, scanning the environment for relevant stimuli (food starting to burn on the stove or someone screaming), and even processing internal stimuli like thoughts and emotions related to previous meetings and discussions. All of these processes occur simultaneously, some more automatically and with less conscious awareness than others. If we were to give all of them the same amount of focus and attention, they would overwhelm us.

William James described in the the late 19th century how mental processes that are abundantly practiced and rehearsed escape our awareness and begin operating autonomously and without conscious intentionality.

This post-conscious automaticity that James studies ensures that with practice, we can master new skills to a degree that we can eventually execute them with efficiency without having to overthink their every aspect.

Mechanism motto: I’m going to stay as far away from that stressful thing as possible.

The problem with avoidance: Things don’t go away just because you ignore them. That assignment will still need to get done. That conflict with that co-worker will need to be resolved eventually.

Mechanism motto: There’s no way that’s going to happen.

The problem with denial: Denial is more than just avoiding a potentially threatening thought or circumstance—it involves vehemently denying the fact that it even exists. It blinds you with unrealistic optimism.

Changes in consciousness can result in changes in perception, thinking, and interpretations of the world.

• Some different states of consciousness include dreams, hallucinations, hypnosis, meditation, sleep, and states induce by psychoactive drugs.
• Altered levels of consciousness can occur and may be caused by medical or mental conditions that change awareness, e.g., coma, confusion, delirium, disorientation, lethargy, and stupor.

Changes of consciousness may be a sign of medical conditions, for example, aneurysm, brain infection, brain tumor or injury, dementia, drug use, epilepsy, heart disease, heatstroke, low blood sugar, poisoning, or shock.

If you think you are experiencing changes in consciousness, talk to your doctor.

Trust between two people at the beginning of a relationship enables the kind of sharing that can create a soulmate.

Many people are in a state of emotional distress due to a situation like boredom, frustration, or being overwhelmed.

Food seems soothing to them in this state of dissociation, causing them to eat mindlessly, something called ‘stress eating’. This is a way to mentally escape or detach from the existing unpleasant situation.

Food is a temporary and suboptimal substitute for any emotional requirement. To break this pattern, one can try to express their emotional problems to an empathetic person from one’s inner circle of friends and loved ones.

Emotional pain can be corrected if it is expressed to a listener who is able to understand and acknowledge the same.

1. Thoughts like "what if there actually are ghosts" create excitement.  Seeking this kind of experiences may be a kind of logical reality-check.

2. Such experiences may evoke different types of repressed complexes or ideas that we may wish to process.

3. Freud claims that most people are never completely freed from the fear of darkness, loneliness and silence. 

What is it about brain matter that gives rise to consciousness? In particular, the neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) - the minimal neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any conscious experience.

Consider this question: What must happen in your brain for you to experience a toothache?

The whole brain can be considered an NCC because it generates experience continually.

• When parts of the cerebellum, the "little brain" underneath the back of the brain, are lost to a stroke or otherwise, patients may lose the ability to play the piano, for example.  But they never lose any aspect of their consciousness. This is because the cerebellum is almost wholly a feed-forward circuit. There are no complex feedback loops.
• The spinal cord and the cerebellum are not enough to create consciousness. Available evidence suggests neocortical tissue in generating feelings.
• The next stages of processing are the broad set of cortical regions, collectively known as the posterior hot zone, that gives rise to conscious perception. In clinical sources of causal evidence, stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings.
• It appears that almost all conscious experiences have their origin in the posterior cortex. But it does not explain the crucial difference between the posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content.