From the author: Posted on my website and in the newspaper “Golden Staircase” Imagine that you are driving a car and before entering an intersection there is a “Give way” sign. Your actions? If you are familiar with the traffic rules (traffic rules), then you will slow down and let traffic pass along the intersecting street. If you did not notice the sign or do not know its meaning and therefore ignored its requirements, then you very seriously risk causing an accident. This analogy is very appropriate for understanding the importance of the so-called “signs of the unconscious.” What is a sign of the unconscious? This is any sign that evokes a response in a person. Response is a kinesthetic reaction in response to any signal that forces a person to go beyond the current usual course of affairs and pay attention to this signal. The response contains an involuntary desire to orientate oneself in a spontaneously arisen situation - the well-known reflex “What is that there?” So, the sign carries some important new information compared to what is happening, and our body picks up this, forcing us to pay attention to the unusual (“out of the ordinary”) signal-sign. A sign is a way of realizing an unconscious attitude generated by a vital need, that is, a manifestation of the need to take into account and begin to act in accordance with this need. For example, walking down the street and passing a cafe that smells delicious of food, a person, even if he is not very hungry, will involuntarily slow down. And a hungry person can even stop and start thinking about whether it’s time for him to have a snack... Thus, the sign contains a certain imperative about the actualized need to change something. The more noticeable the sign, the more acute this need. Such signs, for example, include so-called “horrible dreams” or, conversely, “sudden insights” in response to a seemingly insignificant episode…. At the same time, there are many signs that are not so noticeable in terms of response. In real life situations, they appear as “minor interruptions” of what is happening: minor distractions from activities to something that attracted attention, one’s own unusual fantasies that appeared out of nowhere, not entirely clear (“random”) thoughts or the subject’s spontaneous actions that are in no way connected with the logic of behavior or work performed. We are talking about many subtle distractions of our attention that do not fit into the general outline of what is happening. And these can be internal processes generated by the spontaneous activity of the unconscious (scraps of memories, bizarre fantasies, strange thoughts...) or our attention can be distracted by external signals captured by our perception (noise outside the window, a sounding melody, a beautiful flower, etc.). In any case, the signs reveal themselves in a variety of distractions from the main activity and its attraction to “random” ones that have nothing to do with the matter. All signs have the same nature - they point the way to opportunities. The need for these opportunities - resources - is what “triggers”, figuratively speaking, the sign activity of our unconscious. Signs from our unconscious signal to us about the need to acquire these resources to expand the “bottlenecks” - life qualities. These qualities of life require attention due to the need to develop. It must be said that the signs of our unconscious are unique guidelines for personal growth and personal self-actualization in general. Signs are not just clues – as in Russian folk tales – of our evolutionary path. Signs are real unconscious imperatives - tasks for our consciousness. Consciously we focus on what is known, understandable, has its own name and is familiar. A person consciously strives for certainty. The main role of consciousness when a subject finds himself in a situation of unknown and uncertainty is to explain it with familiar.