The Subconscious - Why Doesn't It Just Speak To Us?

My Take On How A Mind Is Constructed

In a recent post in the journal Nautilus, the American novelist, playwright and screenwriter, Cormac McCarthy (notably, the author of No Country For Old Men), discusses the question of why our unconscious mind, which can send us coded messages in dreams, doesn't just speak up.

First off, much of the material linked to, above, was way over my head.

Nevertheless, I have a model for the mind's basic organization, that readers might find interesting.

The problem with being able to access the unconscious is that it is merely data (for example, McCarthy's piece describes a famous chemist waking up with a hunch on how to solve a problem he'd been struggling with; his hunch is based on a dream image).  Accessing the data in our unconscious can be done intuitively, with dreams for example.  Or, it can be done consciously, using thought.

One can think of our experienced-based data as a computer.  Either we guess what we're looking for, or we search using key words.  Guessing is an intuitive approach, searching is a more analytical way.  Either can be inefficient and take longer.

The key is guessing correctly, or knowing the key words to search for.  This is called wisdom and is something that, ideally, we work on all our lives.

And now the problems encountered with each system:
  * Guessing, or imagining the relevant data configuration, is only possible if our minds are free to let ideas bubble up.
  * Likewise, analyzing a problem goes nowhere if we have ulterior motives and can't control our reasoning powers.

That is, our dreams can turn to nightmares, and our reasoning can be self-serving.  That's why we should all be seeking both freedom and justice in our lives.
And when we do have both, they reinforce each other.  Leading just lives allows us to be freer, which allows better guesses to bubble up, informing us of how to better analyze our experiences.

Which is all a terribly dry way to say that our unconscious accumulates experience over our lifetimes and so, usually, allows for a wiser perspective.  But the data itself can't tell us the answer.

Update: 5/12/17
Ok, I've had criticism about this post.  Essentially, the problem is that the analytical and the intuitive approach are almost always combined in some way:
  * We dream intuitively, but remembering/interpreting a dream takes analysis.
  * We think through important decisions, but imagining alternatives involves intuition.
Not that this changes the model, which is best understood when divided into its distinct component parts.