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The Unconscious

A Cultural History from Hippocrates to Philip K. Dick and Beyond

Author Antonio Melechi

Hardcover

$29.95 US

The MIT Press

6.38"W x 9.31"H x 1.02"D (16.2 x 23.6 x 2.6 cm) | 16 oz (465 g) | 28 per carton

On sale Feb 10, 2026 | 270 Pages | 9780262051026

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A highly original first anthology on the cultural history of the unconscious that is destined to become definitive.

“Know thyself”—the injunction that was once inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo—became a touchstone for classical and modern philosophers before being embraced as the endgame of psychoanalysis by Freud and his followers. The conceptual baggage that Freud took on his armchair journey into the unconscious mind is well known—and so, too, is the more recent science on implicit memory, blindsight and automatic processing—but the history of the unconscious beyond the consulting room and laboratory has largely been overlooked.

From ancient dream theory to hypnosis, somnambulism to psychedelic mind-expansion, The Unconscious by Antonio Melechi traces the wider social and scientific history of the unconscious mind. It brings together a chorus of voices—including Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Mary Arnold-Forster, Swami Vivekananda, and Philip K. Dick, to name only some—to investigate the elusive psychology of memory and learning, instinct and imagination, creative breakthrough and mental breakdown.

Moving beyond the familiar psychoanalytic framework, the book draws on a rich seam of sources, including case studies, psychological experiments, pulp fiction, urban legend, and commercial hype. Approaching the unconscious as a product of both discovery and invention, the anthology underscores its importance as a perennial source of debate, a tantalizing mirror to our hidden selves, and a powerful master key that continues to influence contemporary thought.

ENDORSEMENTS

“A treasury of fascinating and astutely selected texts that brings clarity and focus to a vast and unwieldy subject. Antonio Melechi has distilled a lifetime of multidisciplinary research into an admirably concise volume that sparks fresh ideas and insights at every turn.”
—Mike Jay, author of Psychonauts and High Society

“The unconscious always surprises; it appears in the most curious of places and in the strangest of guises. Bringing together a vast range of materials from voodoo rites to contemporary neuroscience, Melechi’s astonishing compendium is the first to properly acknowledge the startling history of the unconscious.”
—Rhodri Hayward, Reader in Medical History, Queen Mary University of London

“Packed with insight and ideas, Antonio Melechi’s marvelous anthology adds up to a multifaceted intellectual biography of that elusive entity, the unconscious. Going far beyond its subject’s well-known Freudian incarnation, it features 2,000 years of material from the classical world to the New Age, ranging from heavy-duty philosophers to lesser-known pioneers such as Frances Power Cobbe and her ‘unconscious cerebration,’ along with more unexpected figures such as Henri Michaux, Philip K. Dick, and even George Orwell.”
—Phil Baker, author of Austin Osman Spare and City of the Beast

“A fascinating tour of our sometimes futile and always contested efforts to demystify the unconscious—from ancient Greece to modern neuroscience, via Nietzsche, Freud, and more.”
—Christian Jarrett, editor, Psyche magazine; author of Be Who You Want

Antonio Melechi is a historian of medicine and psychology, specializing in the cultural history of the unconscious. He is the author of Fugitive Minds and Servants of the Supernatural, and his essays and reviews have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Granta, New Statesman, Prospect, and Aeon.

Antonio Melechi View titles by Antonio Melechi

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Prologue
Chapter One - Night School: The Philosophy of Dreams
Chapter Two - Castles of Indolence: The Borderlands of Sleep
Chapter Three - Operation Trance: From Mesmerism to Mind Control
Chapter Four - Other Ways of Knowing: Of Instincts and Intuitions
Chapter Five - Infinite Review: Remembering and Forgetting
Chapter Six - Homo Repetitus: From Habit to Automaticity
Chapter Seven - The Divided Self: Clinical and Experimental Insights
Chapter Eight - Mind at Large: New Age Science and Religion
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index

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• Austria

• Azerbaijan

• Bahamas

• Bahrain

• Bangladesh

• Barbados

• Belarus

• Belgium

• Belize

• Benin

• Bermuda

• Bhutan

• Bolivia

• Bonaire, Saba

• Bosnia Herzeg.

• Botswana

• Bouvet Island

• Brazil

• Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter

• Brit.Virgin Is.

• Brunei

• Bulgaria

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Canada

• Cape Verde

• Cayman Islands

• Centr.Afr.Rep.

• Chad

• Chile

• China

• Christmas Islnd

• Cocos Islands

• Colombia

• Comoro Is.

• Congo

• Cook Islands

• Costa Rica

• Croatia

• Cuba

• Curacao

• Cyprus

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• Dem. Rep. Congo

• Denmark

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Dominican Rep.

• Ecuador

• Egypt

• El Salvador

• Equatorial Gui.

• Eritrea

• Estonia

• Ethiopia

• Falkland Islnds

• Faroe Islands

• Fiji

• Finland

• France

• Fren.Polynesia

• French Guinea

• Gabon

• Gambia

• Georgia

• Germany

• Ghana

• Gibraltar

• Greece

• Greenland

• Grenada

• Guadeloupe

• Guam

• Guatemala

• Guernsey

• Guinea Republic

• Guinea-Bissau

• Guyana

• Haiti

• Heard/McDon.Isl

• Honduras

• Hong Kong

• Hungary

• Iceland

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Ireland

• Isle of Man

• Israel

• Italy

• Ivory Coast

• Jamaica

• Japan

• Jersey

• Jordan

• Kazakhstan

• Kenya

• Kiribati

• Kuwait

• Kyrgyzstan

• Laos

• Latvia

• Lebanon

• Lesotho

• Liberia

• Libya

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Macau

• Macedonia

• Madagascar

• Malawi

• Malaysia

• Maldives

• Mali

• Malta

• Marshall island

• Martinique

• Mauritania

• Mauritius

• Mayotte

• Mexico

• Micronesia

• Minor Outl.Ins.

• Moldavia

• Monaco

• Mongolia

• Montenegro

• Montserrat

• Morocco

• Mozambique

• Myanmar

• Namibia

• Nauru

• Nepal

• Netherlands

• New Caledonia

• New Zealand

• Nicaragua

• Niger

• Nigeria

• Niue

• Norfolk Island

• North Korea

• North Mariana

• Norway

• Oman

• Pakistan

• Palau

• Palestinian Ter

• Panama

• PapuaNewGuinea

• Paraguay

• Peru

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• Rwanda

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• Saint Martin

• Samoa,American

• San Marino

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• Senegal

• Serbia

• Seychelles

• Sierra Leone

• Singapore

• Sint Maarten

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Solomon Islands

• Somalia

• South Africa

• South Korea

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• Spain

• Sri Lanka

• St Barthelemy

• St. Helena

• St. Lucia

• St. Vincent

• St.Chr.,Nevis

• St.Pier,Miquel.

• Sth Terr. Franc

• Sudan

• Suriname

• Svalbard

• Swaziland

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• Syria

• Tadschikistan

• Taiwan

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• Thailand

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• Togo

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• Tonga

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• Tunisia

• Turkey

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• Turks&Caicos Is

• Tuvalu

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• United Kingdom

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The Unconscious

A Cultural History from Hippocrates to Philip K. Dick and Beyond

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The Unconscious

A Cultural History from Hippocrates to Philip K. Dick and Beyond

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