Very interesting. I am not sure I buy that there are no unconscious aspects to our awareness though. We may be prone to over-attribute "flashes of insight" to an overly elaborate unconscious process, but the autonomic nervous system is evidence that there are in fact "background" neurologically mediated processes (pumping blood, digesting food, storing and releasing energy) that don't require or even submit to conscious control, and some that are hybrid (breathing, walking). Since we know there are background processes, it is not a stretch to suppose that some aspects of rumination can carry on without us consciously attending to them.

We all are also aware of the value of backing off from thinking hard about / struggling with some problem, and coming back to it later. I'd bet that the reason that works is often, as the author suggests, that it just makes it easier for us to see the problem in a new light -- but also that at times, it's a bit more than just a new angle, and has benefited, at the least, from our brain plasticity reorganizing and optimizing our thought processes around this particular problem.

But this article is a cautionary tale that we perhaps should not attribute too much to the unconscious.

Really interesting article..very much enjoyed that thanks.