Update 1.35 — Complementarity of Consciousness and Unconsciousness.

In this update, I would like to draw attention to the communication between Consciousness and Unconsciousness.

Before I say anything about communication between Consciousness and Unconsciousness, I will come back to communication between High and Low Self-Esteem States. (Personally, I prefer to call these states — Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States, or Power and Vulnerable States).

During the development of the Mandala of Characters, I came to the conclusion that Power or Vulnerable States can change places.

I wrote about movement between Power and Vulnerable States, and about it that these state can change places, in “Update 1.23 — Movement between High and Low Self-Esteem States”.

Among other things, I talked about the fact that there is a kind of duality (or dualism) between Power and Vulnerable States.

At the end of update 1.23 I wrote:

In general, Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States can be considered as a whole. Above, I analyzed two Self-Esteems, that is, Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States. However, we can also say that we have just one two-pole Self-Esteem. And this two-pole Self-Esteem can be: high or low, large or small, heavy or light, strong or vulnerable, hard or sensitive, strong and weak, etc. When we look in this way, two-pole Self-Esteem, we can treat as if it is a kind of scale or range. This range will occur:

• from too Soft Self-Esteem,
• through intermediate states (where Strong and Soft Self-Esteem will be in similar or close to each other),
• to too Strong Self-Esteem.

So, we can actually conclude from the above update 1.23 that there is no separate two Self-Esteem States, namely, Strong and Soft. There is one two-pole Self-Esteem that can manifest itself in different ways. It means, be either strong or soft or similar to each other.

However, in the descriptions which I will use in the Mandala of Characters, I will mainly use separate terms. That is, “Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State” or “Power or Vulnerable State”. I think it is more intuitive and easier to understand.

In update 1.23, I also made a symbolic model of the psyche, in which, I marked the area of connections between Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States. This area can symbolize:

• duality (or dualism) of Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States.
• or in other words, a general area of Self-Esteem that can have different scales or ranges.

In the diagram below, this area includes:

• points marked as “Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State (Power or Vulnerable State)”, and
• arrows connecting these points.

So, the above duality of Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States is fascinating.

Therefore, I think it is worth asking whether the analogical duality as between areas of Strong and Soft Self-Esteem can also occur in the case of Conscious and Unconscious States?

Then, let us take a look at how can work the communication between Conscious and Unconscious States. To present this, I will use the above symbolic model of the psyche.

In the Mandala of Characters, we have three possible ways to move between the Conscious and Unconscious States. It means, these ways are:

1. Connection through one of the points of “Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State”, that is,
Conscious State ↔ Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State ↔ Unconscious State.

2. Connection through the second point of “Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State”, which is on the other side. This connection is as follows:

Conscious State ↔ Strong or Soft Self-Esteem State ↔ Unconscious State.

3. And direct connection, that is,
Conscious State ↔ Unconscious State

I think that among the above three ways of communication between Conscious and Unconscious States, it is worth to draw attention to the third of the above diagrams. It means, to the diagram that shows the direct connection between Conscious and Unconscious State.

In the case of the direct connection between Conscious and Unconscious States, I think, communication between them can be very intense. Perhaps there is even an analogical dualism between them, as between Strong and Soft Self-Esteem States?

So, let us take a look at this direct communication between the Conscious and Unconscious States.

From time to time, this topic keeps coming back to me, and I thought about it in many ways. And I came to the conclusion that direct communication between Conscious and Unconscious States is very intense and very frequent.

It was a surprising discovery for me, and I think, many readers seeing the above conclusion will also be surprised.

This is because, among others, it is usually said:
— that access to the Unconsciousness is not so easy;
— that Unconsciousness speaks to us mainly through dreams during the night or visions, fantasies and daydreams we have during the day;
— that Unconsciousness can manifest itself through our behaviors, which we cannot consciously control;
— that the Unconsciousness can speak to us through the so-called synchronicity. That is, some random events and coincidences, which seem to be not accidental. It means, after some time, we are noticing that random coincidences coincided in such a way, that it solved our problems. Or this made us realize something important to us. (“Synchronicity” is the term introduced by Carl Gustav Jung);
— that the Unconsciousness can manifest itself when we are under the influence of some intoxicating substances, drugs, or stimulants;
— that the Unconsciousness may manifest itself under the influence of strong stress or strong excitement about some special or exceptional events;
— etc.

As I said above, in my opinion, the communication between Consciousness and Unconsciousness is much more frequent, more intense, and more accessible than in the examples mentioned above. And we may come to this conclusion if we use the Mandala of Characters.

Thus, thanks to the Mandala of Characters, we can take a closer look at the communication between Conscious and Unconscious States.

All in all, I think, direct communication between Conscious and Unconscious States, we can compare to direct communication between Power and Vulnerable States.

And In the case of Power and Vulnerable States (or Strong or Soft Self-Esteem States), contacts between them can be:
— frequent,
— intense,
— and these states can also change places.

As for the Conscious and Unconscious States, I think, there is a similar dualism (or duality) between them as between Power and Vulnerable States.

How can we find it out?

Some factors that can help us to discover the activity of Unconscious State I listed in the following points:

1. Conscious State usually leads. Or in other words, Conscious State is in the foreground. In turn, Unconscious State works in the background, is still active, and has a strong impact.
2. Knowing our Power and Vulnerable States helps to distinguish between Conscious and Unconscious States.
   I think that when we are able to distinguish between our Power and Vulnerable States, then it is easier to see the activity of the Unconscious State.
3. Many behaviors resulting from Unconscious State we can assign to Conscious State.
   I think a lot of our behaviors is influenced by both Consciousness and Unconsciousness. For example, we can interpret thoughts and ideas flowing from Unconsciousness as conscious. And we just do not wonder what part of our psyche is influencing us at a given moment.
4. If we know what type of character has our Unconscious State, we can more easily see its activity.
   Knowing the character type of our Conscious and Unconscious States can help us to distinguish which thoughts, visions, fantasies, emotions, etc., flow from our Consciousness or from Unconsciousness.

In summary, the Mandala of Characters allows us to orient ourselves in our basic psychological states, namely, Conscious, Unconscious, Power and Vulnerable States. And thanks to the Mandala we can observe when and how often we move between individual states.

Regarding the communication between Conscious and Unconscious States, as I said above, in my opinion communication between these states is very frequent.

The Mandala of Characters can help observe the communication between these states. For example, thanks to the Mandala, we can observe:
— when,
— how often,
— and to what extent,
we are influenced by Conscious or Unconscious State.

This: when, how often and to what extent, we are influenced by the Conscious or Unconscious State depends, among others, on:
— a given situation;
— the circumstances we are in;
— the environment in which we are;
— the problems we are dealing with;
— people who are around or we are cooperating with;
— and many others.

In my opinion, the contacts between Consciousness and Unconsciousness are so frequent that no matter what we do, these states are constantly in contact with each other. As if, our Consciousness and Unconsciousness constantly consult each other.

Usually, our Conscious State plays a major role, but from time to time, our Unconscious State also comes to the fore and plays a leading role.

As I mentioned above, we can observe it when we use the tool, which is the Mandala of Characters.

To symbolically show the frequent communication between Conscious and Unconscious States, I decided to thicken the arrows that connect these two psychological states. We can see in the diagram below, where the arrows between Conscious and Unconscious States are a little thicker than the other arrows.

Personally, now when I have realized that the communication between the Conscious and Unconscious States is very frequent, I have begun to wonder about the name for Unconscious State? It means I wonder whether the name of Unconscious State is appropriate?

Rather, it turns out that the Unconscious State is unconscious because we do not realize that the Unconscious State is close to us. And we do not realize that we have frequent contact with it.

Personally, I would rather call the Unconscious State otherwise.

And I think, the Unconscious State could be, for example, described as:
— Complementary State,
— Supportive State,
— Supplementary State,
— Compensatory State
— etc.

Personally, I have already decided to use the above names for the Unconscious State. So, I prefer to define the Unconscious State, for example, as the “Complementary” State, “or Supportive State”.

Then “Unconsciousness” we could, for example, describe as “Complementarity”.

These names are actually my suggestions for now. I will yet consider them whether they are really the best? However, for me now these are, in a sense” auxiliary names, or a kind of second names.

Of course, I will still use the terms “Unconscious State” and “Unconsciousness”, because these terms are more familiar and therefore more intuitive.

All in all, from now I going to use:
— “Complementary State” or “Supportive State”—as the second name for—Unconscious State,
—“Complementarity”—as the second name for—Unconsciousness.

So, let us add these names to the symbolic model of our psyche that I use in the Mandala of Characters.

As we can see:
— next to Unconscious Triangle now is also the second name, that is, “Complementary Triangle”,
— and next to Unconscious State now is also “Complementary State”.