If we are going to teach nonconscious knowledge, we must understand what this kind of knowledge looks like and where it is used naturally. It is hard to teach what you can't talk about. Nonconscious knowledge isn't all that difficult to see, however. For example, as described in Chapter 11, when people have trouble falling asleep, they report that their minds are racing. Similarly, when they wake up earlier than they would like, and want to fall back to sleep but can't, their minds seem to have a mind of their own. They find themselves thinking about things that seem unnecessary to worry about, or about subjects or problems they have been avoiding.

The sense that the mind has a mind of its own relates strongly to what people refer to when they speak about consciousness. Clearly, we can know what we think. We view ourselves thinking when we're in a semi-wakeful state, and cannot stop ourselves from doing so. We are conscious of our thoughts.

But, if this is indeed what is meant by consciousness, it is an odd situation, to say the least. We may “hear ourselves thinking,” but we seem to have no control over the process. We can, of course, interrupt the process, give in to it if you will, and begin to think harder about what our minds were thinking about anyway, eliminating the mind's racing and forcing an order to things. The curious thing is that we have no words to describe these various states.