While hypothesizing about the human mind, Freud developed a topographical model of the mind. According to Freud, the mind could be broken down into three components: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. The conscious contains all thoughts and ideas that are immediately received by the mind: it is the active site of the mind. These thoughts may include a person’s perception, emotion, and intellectual processes. Next in level of awareness is the preconscious. The contents of the preconscious are not obstructed by any form of repression and are therefore accessible to the conscious. To actually access the material in the preconscious, the mind must shift the information up to the conscious. The unconscious, on the other hand, is not accessible by the conscious. The unconscious stores memories and ideas that are observed. The unconscious is like a logbook that takes note of every incident that occurs without the person knowing it. The unconscious also holds a person’s desires, wishes, dreams, and fears (Kaplan and Sadock, Synopsis of Psychiatry 211).
