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Unconscious

By , About.com Guide

Updated August 30, 2011

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Definition: 1. One of three divisions of Sigmund Freud's topographic theory of the mind (the others being the conscious and preconscious) in which the psychic material is not readily accessible to conscious awareness by ordinary means. 2. In popular usage, any mental material not in the immediate field of awareness. 3. Denoting a state of unawareness, with lack of response to external stimuli, as in a coma.

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