The mind is a complicated place with all its parts, states and processes. I will never be able to get in touch with it in a way that I would become fully aware of all that is happening in me. There are and will be hidden parts in my mind. Something remains untouched and beyond the consciousness.

The unconscious mind has its roots in the body and bodily sensations. It is the most primitive and fundamental part of me where the urges of my body dictate the development. It is about keeping and feeling myself alive through constantly competing desires to create and destroy, to love and hate. Those were my very first experiences when I was little and did not master the words yet.

Nowadays, the closest I can get to my unconscious mind is when I’m dreaming. The dream world is a timeless place where anything I can and can’t imagine is possible. There is neither daytime logic nor any rules. Dreams are based on emotions. While dreaming, I have experienced the strongest and purest feelings: hatred, despair, horror, embarrassment, longing, and passion.

“Art touches the unconscious mind, because it connects with my archaic feelings.”

Art touches the unconscious mind, because it connects with my archaic feelings. Through art and its link to the unconscious it is possible to get a profound feeling of togetherness, an integrated sense of self. It is a magical feeling – like I had discovered something new and got connected to something old at the same time. There is a sense of alienation and familiarity side by side.

The unconscious mind hints about its existence to me. I can sense it in the instances of intuition and glimpses of gut feeling. In dreams and artistic achievements I can see pieces of my unconscious thoughts although they are in a masked form. I am connected to the unconscious when my body produces speechless, emotionally charged experiences and a free-floating sense of being alive.

My attitude towards the veiled part of me is ambiguous. It would be interesting to know more about what I am made of. At the same time, it is also scary to get in touch with the stranger in my mind. It is like diving into muddy water, not knowing what lies beneath. I have an urge to hold my breath and struggle to the shore, but going with the flow fascinates me more. That is why I will continue these gentle attempts to get in touch with different parts in me. For all I can say by now is: hello me, whoever you are!

Emilia Suviala is a psychologist specialised in developmental and educational psychology. She is interested in human attachment and psychoanalytic thinking.

Teemu Suviala is the creative director and co-founder of design consultancy Kokoro & Moi. He started his career drawing comics for Pahkasika magazine.

"We need more imagination and dreams." –Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby

Could you name 3 interesting and meaningful concepts or phenomena in which design and science meet?

Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby:

1. Ethics

2. Synthetic biology – bioethics

3. Imagination

AD: We need more imagination and dreams. All the boys of my generation had a picture of themselves in a space suit, but today, dreams have collapsed. When we ask our students about their dreams, they say “we want to save the planet”. But that’s not a dream, that’s a hope! We need new dreams that go into the 21st century, and design can be a tool to give shape to those dreams. And I’m not talking about utopia, it’s more about values – ways of existing and alternative ways of living that confront the market and the industry.

FR: Mainstream culture and media have managed to lock us into unimaginative, dogmatic, limited and conservative ways of dreaming. This is where critical design can take out another role, challenging our dreams and implying scepticism to them.

AD: As we have to consume less, why design a sustainable chair instead of not designing a new chair at all? Rather than making products and solutions that reflect the current dogma, we wish to direct design towards people’s minds and try to challenge their understanding and values. In essence, we should use design to change ourselves rather than changing the world to human needs. This means redesigning our desires, hopes, dreams and visions. We want to direct design to that part of being human, rather than trying to solve problems.

AD: But we’re not hippies. FR: Do we sound like hippies? AD: No, we don’t.