The most recommended books on the subconscious

Who picked these books? Meet our 28 experts.

28 authors created a book list connected to subconscious, and here are their favorite subconscious books.
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Book cover of The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Antonio Zadra Author Of When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep

From my list on the science of dreams.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I had many intriguing dreams during my childhood, including fantastic flying dreams, the idea of becoming a sleep scientist never crossed my mind. All that changed during my first year in college. It was then that I experienced an exceptionally long and vivid lucid dream that changed my life; it was because of this dream that I decided to become a dream researcher. Today, I’m a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, director of the department’s Dream Research Laboratory, and have published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters on sleep and dreams. I don’t have as many flying dreams as I once did, but I do have a really cool job while awake. 

Antonio's book list on the science of dreams

Antonio Zadra Why did Antonio love this book?

Jung proposed many fascinating ideas about the inner workings of the mind. His concept of the archetypes and of the collective unconscious are two of his best-known contributions, and both are intimately tied to his conceptualization of dreams. The idea that dreams not only emanate from our personal unconscious, but also from our collective unconscious (a deep stratum of the unconscious common to all humankind) and contain universal patterns, images, and dispositions, has helped countless people develop a deeper understanding of their dreams.

What’s more, this book exposes Jung’s view of dreaming as a wholesome, natural process that can give rise to creative—even transcendent—experiences featuring personal challenges, unmapped potentials, and elements of one’s personality. Not always the easiest of reads, but highly rewarding. 

By C.G. Jung, Gerhard Adler (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Essays which state the fundamentals of Jung's psychological system: "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" and "The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious," with their original versions in an appendix.


Book cover of The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies

Tamel Wino Author Of Ékleipsis: the Abyss

From my list on story collections that gnaw at your subconscious.

Why am I passionate about this?

Tamel Wino is a Canadian fiction writer from resplendent British Columbia whose works focus largely on the degeneration of sanity and morality. He studied Health Sciences and Psychology, which only furthered his interest in human nature. With inspirations including Shirley Jackson, Cormac McCarthy, Clive Barker, Margaret Atwood, and Edgar Allan Poe; Tamel’s expositions are strongly grounded in traditions of dark fiction. Yet, with his bold narrative voice and incisive plot construction, Wino is paving a new movement within the space.

Tamel's book list on story collections that gnaw at your subconscious

Tamel Wino Why did Tamel love this book?

A powerhouse collection, familiar and innovative, at times agonizingly devastating and horribly entertaining. After reading John Langan's novel The Fisherman, I just had to pick up this one. A profoundly, gratifying dark read. With such a sublime and unwavering collection, Langan rises in my book as one of the most fascinating in the contemporary, horror writer circle.

By John Langan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I want to be like John Langan when I grow up, okay? He blends meticulously crafted traditional narratives with joyous genre-bending and narrative rule-breaking. His stories are fiercely smart, timely, timeless, heartbreaking, and of course, flat-out scary. Langan fearlessly commits to his monsters, his characters, his readers, to his vision of the horror story and the messed-up, broken, frightening world we inhabit. Wide, Carnivorous Sky, indeed."-Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and Swallowing a Donkey's Eye.

John Langan has, in the last few years, established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary horror literature. Gifted with a…


Book cover of Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success

Bo Yoder Author Of Optimize Your Trading Edge: Increase Profits, Reduce Draw-Downs, and Eliminate Leaks in Your Trading Strategy

From Bo's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Trader Truth-seeker Mentor Neuroscientist Polymath

Bo's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Plus, Bo's 3-year-old's favorite books.

Bo Yoder Why did Bo love this book?

I really enjoy Adam’s take on the art of communication, success engineering, and persuasion, and I was most interested in how he re-engineered the concept of affirmations into a much more brain-changing ‘re-frame” protocol.

I have used specialized breath work stacks within my Myalolipsis Technique to shut down the brain’s Default Mode Network so that the subconscious mind can be re-programmed to eliminate self-sabotaging or limiting behaviors. However, this takes time and is a 1 on 1 process.

With this book, Adams has created a “one to many” process that I suspect will have a big impact on those who read it. It’s my favorite book this year because it sparks an entirely new area for me to research and develop within my Myalolipsis Technique toolbox.

Book cover of Pre-Closing for Network Marketing: "Yes" Decisions before the Presentation

Bernie De Souza Author Of Getting "Yes" Decisions: What insurance agents and financial advisors can say to clients.

From my list on closing skills for insurance agents and network marketers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I see salesmen talking and selling, but never being able to close. They use outdated techniques from 30 years ago. The world now is over exposed and over marketed to. Buyers are more sophisticated. We have to change.

Bernie's book list on closing skills for insurance agents and network marketers

Bernie De Souza Why did Bernie love this book?

Most salespeople believe the closing happens at the end of the presentation. It doesn’t. It happens in the first few seconds.

The biggest change in the selling process has happened over the last 25 years. Brain science has proven that the subconscious minds of our prospects make snap decisions about us. This book shows us what to say during those first critical seconds. Prospects and clients judge us harshly, and they do it in the first few seconds.

The case studies and proof will change how we look at selling forever.

By Keith Schreiter, Tom Schreiter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pre-Closing for Network Marketing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Get our prospects to make a "yes" decision immediately ... even before our presentation begins!

Pre-closing is natural. We make a final decision to go to a movie before we see the movie. We make a final decision to go to a restaurant before we see the menu. It is the same with sales presentations. Prospects decide first if they want our business or product, before they see our facts, features and benefits.

Closing at the end of our presentations creates stress for us and our prospects. We hate the feeling of pushing for a final decision at the end…


Book cover of The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

Jenny Grant Rankin Author Of Increasing the Impact of Your Research: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Findings and Widening Your Reach

From my list on getting people to accept facts.

Why am I passionate about this?

Though my two doctorates and experience landed me in the arenas of education and data-sharing, I soon realized that merely sharing information was not the way to get people to embrace fact. My books and speaking (I’ve lectured at Cambridge, Columbia, Oxford, Comic-Con, etc.) now focus on how to persuade people to absorb, remember, care about, and act on new information. I teach everyone from scientists to parents about how to share information in ways that get around people’s mental blockades. I’m also a Mensan and Fulbright Specialist who writes for Psychology Today and was honored by the White House.

Jenny's book list on getting people to accept facts

Jenny Grant Rankin Why did Jenny love this book?

I first fell in love with Vedantam’s way of weaving storytelling with research via his podcast Hidden Brain. When I found out he had written a book I was thrilled, and his written account of our unconscious minds did not disappoint. Vedantam doesn’t shy away from anything (terrorism, capital punishment, race, gender, politics…) in tackling why our reasons for thinking things are not what we believe them to be. He helps us understand the power (for good or for bad) of our “hidden brains” in a way you will never forget.

By Shankar Vedantam,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hidden Brain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist…


Book cover of The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake

B.W. Powe Author Of These Shadows Remain: A Fable

From my list on vistas and fantasias of the subconscious.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is B.W. Powe—and I’m a writer, poet, teacher, mentor, and musician. I’ve written since I was a boy, when I began to dream of beautiful sentences, and finding a way to turn music into literary expression. I live in Stouffville, a small edge town near Toronto, Canada—and a portion of the year in Cordoba, Spain, where my wife is from. I was encouraged by my mother, an amateur pianist, and my father, a politician, and novelist. We lived in Toronto through the 60s-90s and witnessed how the city sprawled. I’ve written about the Genesis Overdrive that informs culture and lives. My latest book, Ladders Made of Water, will be available on February 14th, 2023.

B.W.'s book list on vistas and fantasias of the subconscious

B.W. Powe Why did B.W. love this book?

Blake: an indispensable visionary of poetry—whose multi-media approach to poetry—his art, visual designs, words, images, mythic stories, lyrics, dramatic monologues, polemics on behalf of opening the doors of perception—continue to haunt and provoke, inspire and lift, perplex and illuminate, prophetically anticipate and speak from the frontiers of the wild, countering imagination. Blake is the Romantic poet par excellence, whose vocation of finding inspiration and vision through poetry itself goes beyond his time and place, reaching to us in our troubled, sometimes disabled pandemia times, ecological catastrophe times. With Blake's books, one work opens to another, and to another: and we see worlds in his words. He helps us to apprehend the whorling fluidities, emanating energies, in our circuit cosmos. 

By William Blake, David Erdman (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Since its first publication in 1965, this collection has been widely hailed as the best available text of William Blake's poetry and prose. It is now expanded to include a new foreword by Harold Bloom, his definitive statement on Blake's greatness.


Book cover of The October Country

Tyler Paterson Author Of Dark Satellites

From my list on transport to the heart of spooky season.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an October baby born during a full moon, into a small New England town notorious for their connection to the Salem Witch Trials. My house was for sure haunted growing up, I’ve had a lot of nightmares over the years, and I found solace in the horror genre. Though my true background is in comedy having studied with Second City Chicago, the experience afforded me the opportunity to explore the more pained and shadowed sides of myself as a tool to write relevant material. I learned to focus those explorations into narratives and create stories with a lot of heart that highlight my own quest to uncover inner peace.

Tyler's book list on transport to the heart of spooky season

Tyler Paterson Why did Tyler love this book?

Though often overlooked in Bradbury’s canon of masterpieces, The October Country is such a fantastic treat. I recommend it every chance I get and often quote his descriptions of Autumn. “It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason.” I mean…right?? How heartbreakingly beautiful is that?

The book comes together as a collection of short stories that take place in a world of perpetual autumn, where trees drop their fiery leaves one by one, lakes become still, and darkness creeps in earlier each day.

I swear, if I could wrap myself in a cocoon of this feeling, I’d be a happy camper. Plus, touches of the supernatural? Yes. All day. Count me in. Forever and ever. Amen.

By Ray Bradbury,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The October Country as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The October Country is Ray Bradbury’s own netherworld of the soul, inhabited by the horrors and demons that lurk within all of us. Renowned for his multi-million-copy bestseller, Fahrenheit 451, and hailed by Harper’s magazine as “the finest living writer of fantastic fiction,” Ray Bradbury proves here that he is America’s master of the short story.

This classic collection features:

The Emissary: The faithful dog was the sick boy’s only connection with the world outside—and beyond . . .
The Small Assassin: A fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother’s dream come true—or her worst nightmare . . .…


Book cover of The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Jason Brennan Author Of Democracy: A Guided Tour

From my list on democracy, its promises and perils.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a philosopher by training and professor of economics, ethics, and public policy at Georgetown University’s business school. My work often begins by noting that philosophy debates often take certain empirical claims for granted, claims which turn out to be false or mistaken. Once we realize this mistake, this clears the ground and helps us do better work. I focus on issues in immigration, resistance to state injustice, taboo markets, theories of ideal justice, and democratic theory. I’m also a native New Englander now living near DC, a husband and father, and the guitarist and vocalist in a 70s-80s hard rock cover band.

Jason's book list on democracy, its promises and perils

Jason Brennan Why did Jason love this book?

This is perhaps the best, most illuminating book on human nature ever written. You’ll walk away having a better understanding of people behave as they do, and why so many institutions and behaviors fail to achieve their stated goals. 

Simler and Hanson’s main thesis is that we are designed, by evolution, to act upon hidden selfish motives. We all benefit from general cooperation, but as individuals, we each benefit if others are cooperative, while we skirt the rules a bit and act selfishly. But we face two problems. One is that this works only if we don’t get caught.

The second is that other people have evolved to be good at reading our minds and assessing our intentions, especially over repeated interactions. Evolution’s solution, Simler and Hanson argue, is that in our conscious minds, we earnestly and sincerely believe we act on noble motives, while we subconsciously pursue status, power,…

By Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Elephant in the Brain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such
an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our…


Book cover of Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do

Robert A. Prentice Author Of Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions

From my list on ethics explaining why good people do bad things.

Why am I passionate about this?

It might be a stretch to call me an expert in ethics, but I have taught ethics for more than 30 years and I’ve read deeply in the field of behavioral ethics. I'm proud of the work I’ve done with the Ethics Unwrapped video project, though most of the credit goes to filmmakers Cara Biasucci (co-author of Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions) and Lazaro Hernandez (producer of Ethics Unwrapped). My passion for this topic is driven largely by the fact that I want my two daughters to live in a world where most people are trying to do the right thing most of the time. 

Robert's book list on ethics explaining why good people do bad things

Robert A. Prentice Why did Robert love this book?

Yale professor John Bargh is a wonderful writer and a great storyteller.

We all know that our minds operate at both a conscious and an unconscious level, but not until I read this book did I realize how much happens at the unconscious level and that this helps explain everything from how getting a flu shot affects our attitudes toward immigration to how having power can induce us to try to unfairly advantage people we perceive to be like us at the expense of “out-group” members. 

By John Bargh,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Before You Know It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'John Bargh's Before You Know It moves our understanding of the mysteries of human behaviour one giant step forward. A brilliant and convincing book.' - Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and David and Goliath

How much of what we say, feel and do is under our conscious control? How much is not? And most crucial of all: if we understood how our unconscious worked - if we knew why we do what we do - could we finally, fundamentally, know ourselves?

From checking a dating app to holding a cup of coffee or choosing who to vote for, our unconscious…


Book cover of When You Can, You Will

Jeff Davidson Author Of Simpler Living: A Back to Basics Guide to Cleaning, Furnishing, Storing, Decluttering, Streamlining, Organizing, and More

From my list on making your life simpler and healthier.

Why am I passionate about this?

I hold the registered trademark as "The Work-Life Balance Expert®," and work with organizations that seek to enhance their productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. I've spoken to Fortune 50 companies such as IBM, Cardinal Health Group, Lockheed, American Express, the IRS, Wells Fargo, and Westinghouse. My books have been published in 19 languages and have been featured in 68 of the top 75 American newspapers, as well as Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. At heart, I'm a simpler living advocate. I believe in giving back to his community and am an active volunteer for Art Space in downtown Raleigh, the North Carolina Museum of Arts, and numerous other civic, social, and charitable groups.

Jeff's book list on making your life simpler and healthier

Jeff Davidson Why did Jeff love this book?

The subtitle to this insightful book is Why you Can't Always do What You Want to do.. and What to Do About It. The author says that in our instant soup society you're encouraged to do more, be more, have more, and achieve more. Technology enables us to accomplish more faster. No matter how quickly society moves, however, human beings still have to be ready before they can make certain changes. And really, you can't hurry change. You might have to try on the change several times before you're accustomed to the way it feels. Amazingly, even if you don't know you're ready to change, your subconscious will know.

Changes made the easy way are effortless. You often find yourself thinking, saying, and doing things that would have been unthinkable even the day before. Changes made the hard way can be difficult, unpleasant, and even frightening. You might feel as…

By Lynne Bernfield,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked When You Can, You Will as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In today's society of instant gratification, success is supposed to be achieved by people who can immediately turn their lives around . . . without a second thought. Therapist Lynne Bernfield advocates a slower approach to change and assures that change can be the most rewarding part of life when it comes at the right time.