ABSTRACT
In the topographical frame of reference the Conscious is regarded as the system on the surface of the mental apparatus. Nevertheless, it has depth and is bounded by the relatively deeper Preconscious, with which it shares a great number of characteristics. The Conscious, on the other hand, is that part of the mental apparatus within which the quality of consciousness becomes attached to mental contents. In describing the differences between conscious and unconscious processes, Sigmund Freud characterized the nature of the processes involved by drawing an analogy with a particular type of toy for children, known at that time as the mystic writing-pad. Imaginative contents can be fully conscious alongside a knowledge that they are not real, and, in this way, quite unbridled instinctual wish derivatives can enter the Conscious in the form of daydreams. The censorship can be regarded as operating over the whole range of the Preconscious, more stringent at its superficies and relatively lax at its depths.
