The collective experience of all intelligence at all levels throughout the universe has perceived an almost infinite number of events. Microorganisms may gain at least a limited understanding of their surrounding environment by unconsciously "experiencing it," just as we humans do. All levels of the earth's outer shell have been "experienced" by an almost infinite variety of life forms over the past several billions of years.

This stored information is captured and passed on in our genetic codes so that our bodies and minds have unconscious access to it. Our conceptual understanding of the molecular level probably stems in part from preprogrammed information passed on to us genetically from previous lower life forms. Instinctual behavior results from inheritance of stored information which is unconscious to us. The way in which we perceive the reality of our existence is probably influenced by genetically transmitted information passed on through billions of generations of evolution. Each organism eventually dies, but its genes are somewhat immortal in that they are continuously passed on from one generation to the next. Morphogenetic fields, as proposed by Sheldrake, may also play a role in the transmission of information from one generation to the next.

6) Consciousness represents one end of a spectrum with unconsciousness or lack of awareness at the other end, i.e., black-white, love-hate, hot-cold, and wet-dry. The vast majority of information stored in memory is contained within the unconscious and becomes partially accessible to consciousness only during altered states of consciousness.

It has only been during the last several generations that there has arisen a body of scientific evidence supporting the conclusion that each of us has an unconscious aspect to our mind. But there are those who still question its existence, even though there no longer should be any doubt.

Our unconscious mind contains an enormous amount of information of which we are mostly unaware. Occasionally we experience rather dramatic demonstrations of its existence. There is evidence that we largely retain unconscious memories of all prior life experiences, perhaps even including those related to birth or before, although substantial controversy exists pertaining to this concept.

An impressive experiment that Lyall Watson was personally involved in was conducted to try to determine the extent of unconscious memory. A group of subjects were each given a minute's exposure to a large collection of unrelated objects followed by a five-minute pause. Each was then given both written and oral examinations to test for memory to determine how many objects each person could remember. There was a vast difference in the various scores obtained. All the subjects then were hypnotized and again tested to determine how many of the unrelated objects they could remember. The difference in scores was almost completely erased. All but one of the individuals demonstrated an equal and very much enhanced ability to remember almost every item on the list.²¹

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