ABSTRACT
The term prereflective unconscious refers to the shaping of experience by organizing principles that operate outs a person's conscious awareness: The organizing principles of a person's subjective world, whether operating positively or negatively, are themselves unconscious. Unconsciousness results from situations of unattunement or misattunement. A person's experiences are shaped by his psychological structures without this shaping becoming the focus of awareness and reflection. The prereflective unconscious in the dream appears in the geometry of the imagery, wherein there is a spatial division between the world above; the daylight, public, conscious realm of a loving family-and the world below-the nighttime, mostly unconscious life of betrayal and incest. A profound and central invariant principle organizing the patient's subjective universe pertained to this dichotomy, according to which vitally needed acceptance by others is gained and protected through the systematic driving underground of one's own emotional truths.
