This book is about the unconscious. Later I will call it the subconscious. There is a reason for this, which I will explain shortly. How is it possible to write a book about something that, if we take its name at face value, is unknowable? As I am writing, I am using words, a conscious language related to the activities of a much more recent brain development called the neocortex. But at the same time, many of my bodily functions are operating sub rosa, unbeknownst to my conscious mind.

We have two brains and two different ways of processing our reality. Our more ancient brain is referred to as our reptilian brain. The two brains are like fire and water. Why has the unconscious received such a bad rap? This antagonism is not new. Joseph’s brothers, the Hebrew Bible relates, wanted to kill him because he was a dreamer. The ancient Greeks portrayed Apollo, the sun god, as transpiercing with his arrow of light the womb-like darkness of the cave of the Pythia, keeper of messages from the unconscious. Thereafter Apollo, the clear light of the conscious mind, ruled over Delphi.