The Trouble with the "Unconscious."

When we speak about 'the' unconscious, we have already deluded ourselves twice. First, by telling ourselves that it is a region (of our minds?) that can be summarized in a single word, treating so many differences as a single integratable idea, and second, with the implication that it is 'within' us, either personally or collectively. It is not necessarily either.

Consider unconsciousnesses at different depths (or heights), unconsciousnesses that are without (objective unconsciousnesses, like undiscovered facts), and consider that dreams, illusions, hypotheses, speculations and phantasies all function similarly as place-holders for gaps in our awareness/knowledge. They keep us functional, when we really have no clue what is going on.

These illusions are asking us to decode them, but whether we ever do is a question of how we approach them. Do we cling to them in themselves, or do we let them evaporate as we bring awareness to he unlit regions?

Is the conscious/unconscious dichotomy really much different from the known/unknown dichotomy, except that the one is supposed to be internal and the other external? Can we not consider that the "inside" and "outside", may be opposing faces of a continuous surface: a Moebius strip duality, a Klein bottle duality? What changes if thought is founded on a non-orientable surface?

Consider 'illusion' from this perspective. In either case, as 'subjective belief' (there is a myself) or 'objective conjecture' (there is a God), it serves as a necessary bridge. There are those who never cross their bridges, but for those who do: as clarity grows, and realities emerge, there are an infinity of new bridges to new lands.

To quote Mathew Downey Jr. : 'Magic may be illusion, but illusion itself is magical.'