Unconscious Mind

Why do people sometimes unconscious of what they are doing?

Get the fifth word of this complicated question, and we will start by discussing it so we can get to the point of knowing why we, people, become like that.

Friedrich von Schelling
(commons.wikimedia.org)

According to Friedrich von Schelling, the unconscious mind is defined as automatic mental processes that are not available to introspection. People are being unconscious sometimes about what they are doing because of the fact that there are times that they are filled with emotions leading to actions they do not really mean to do.

There are, according to Eduard von Hartmann, three layers of the unconscious: "the absolute unconscious, which constitutes the substance of the universe and is the source of the other forms of the unconscious; the physiological unconscious, which like Carus' unconscious, is at work in the origin, development, and evolution of living beings, including man; and the relative or psychological unconscious, which lies at the source of our conscious mental life." ---- Ellenberger, Henri F. (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books. pp. 209-210. ISBN 465-01672-3.

Why do we not just do everything that we feel/think?

Sigmund Freud, founding father of psychoanalysis, stated that the concept of the unconscious was based on the theory of repression. He suggested a series in which ideas are repressed, but remain in the mind, removed from consciousness yet present, and then reappear again after certain circumstances. ---- Sigmund Freud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#The_unconscious

Sigmund Freud
(biography.com)

Freud divided the mind into the conscious mind (or the ego) and the unconscious mind. The latter was then further divided into the id (or instincts and drive) and the superego (or conscience). In this theory, the unconscious refers to the mental processes of which individuals make themselves unaware. ---- Sigmund Freud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind

In psychoanalytic terms, the unconscious does not include all that is not conscious, but rather what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what a person is averse to knowing consciously. People also viewed the unconscious as a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression.

Division of the mind
psychology.about.com

However, there are still many philosophers, who claimed that it is invalid, criticized the concept of unconsciousness. Erich Fromm’s opinion was that the term ‘the unconscious’ is actually a mystification. There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. “If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: the unconscious.” ---- http://mindandphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/09/meaning-of-unconscious-mind.html