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In a series of papers, I have discussed several sources of confusion over the concept of the unconscious (1987a, b, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994). The purpose of the present paper is to analyze an additional source stemming from the notion of “levels of description.” I argue for a broad concept of the unconscious that includes everything mental which is not conscious at a given moment. Within this broad concept, a number of distinctions can be drawn based on the various reasons why a given type of mental entity or process is not conscious. One category comprises those kinds of mental entities that are capable of becoming conscious under certain specified conditions and is equivalent to Freud's “descriptive unconscious,” which includes preconscious and dynamically unconscious mental contents. The rest of the unconscious comprises those mental entities and processes incapable of becoming conscious under any conditions, which includes mental mechanisms, agencies, and instinctual drives. Based on Sandler and Joffe (1969), I have labeled this the “nonexperiential unconscious.” It is equivalent to what others (e.g., Knapp, 1988) call the “cognitive unconscious.” I will argue that instinctual drives are unconscious in the “nonexperiential” sense, but this claim depends on showing that instinctual drives belong to the psychological rather than the biological level of description.