Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. VII, 1959: Consciousness in Psychoanalytic Theory: Some Implications for Current Research in Perception. George S. Klein. Pp. 5-34.

The crucial importance of a theory of perception for a general psychoanalytic psychology was recognized by Freud and responded to in part by Hartmann and Rapaport. Klein draws upon old and recent research in subliminal perception, from Binet and Pötzl to Fisher and his own contributions, to demonstrate the extent and depth of consciously unnoticed registrations. These data indicate that 'consciousness' subsumes a wide range of variations of awareness, plus a wide range of difference in the modes of experiencing this awareness. The author stresses the following. 1. Registration and perception involve distinct and different processes. Registration is extraordinarily encompassing and nonselective; perception is highly selective and structuring. 2. Perceptions are distinct qualities, experiences of being in contact with things as they are; registrations must be enhanced with an additional cathectic quality to become perceptions. 3. The state of consciousness is crucial in determining the structures of perceptions and registrations, in determining how registrations are worked over and organized. Evidence cited indicates that registrations inaccessible as perceptions in the 'waking state' are recoverable as perceptions in a dream, or as images in those special modifications of the waking state in which reality contact and reality investment are minimized. These subliminal registrations are incorporated into a variety of schemata, subject to transformation either on primary or secondary process terms, as determined by the controlling structures that characterize the state of consciousness at the moment. Thus the 'waking state' favors perceptions that reflect schemata adaptively consonant with reality, while still permitting more primary process influence upon waking imagery. Awareness achieves efficiency and economy of cathectic expenditure at the cost of wider encompassing of external reality. The implications of this to creativity and the artist are reviewed.