The Unconscious – Definition and Use

Abstract

The term unconscious has been used since centuries. The term has remained an obsceure issue to the philosophers and to the common man also. Many philosophers have tried to define the term ‘unconscious’; in different times. But there is no any valid definition of unconscious. In antiquity, the term, unconscious had variously been referred to the mysterious, exotic, which is not attainable, beyond our consciousness. The idea of unconscious had been explored in various cultures.  It was recorded between 2500 BC and 600 BC in Hindu text “Vedas”.  In modern period, we have Shakespeare’s play Hamlet where Shakespeare tried to explore the term unconscious through the workings of Hamlet’s mind. Western philosophers such as Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche developed the idea of human mind. This paper tries to explore the concept of the unconscious that was used over the years. The term has been extensively used by psychologists across the world. However, the term has different connotations in different periods. The present paper is an attempt to enumareate different connotations of the term ‘Unconscious’.