Ok - I've tried to follow the conversation, forgive me if I've missed something.

JB brought up a very good analogy but that should have led in a more logical direction. Let me reverse this ship and start from there.

JB- brought up the analogy of a woman witnessing her spouse drowning. In one instance the woman found herself amused, entertained. In the other instance she became grief stricken.

What was the difference - the situation or the state of mind?

Does grief cease to exist, when we no longer exhibit behavior associated with that grief? NO - because from the unconscious we can "recall" the state of mind and experience the grief again.

So all experiences are relegated to the unconscious, thereby altering the state of mind which allows us to focus on the current cognitive moment.

What affects our state of mind in any particular cognitive moment, is how we relate the current experience to the past. This is not always a conscious effort. If we experience another moment in which there is grief, the 'state of mind' that is referential to the experience of grief unconsciously surfaces and will create a physiological reaction based on that state of mind.

This does not require cognitive thought, however, because the state of mind is the same, it may make one remember past experiences.

So it was NOT thought (cognition) that evoked the state of mind, but rather the event currently being experienced. It's like auto pilot - an event is unconsciously related to a previously experienced state of mind, which invokes that state of mind, which causes a physiological (chemical) reaction in the brain, consistent with that state of min ---- it is not until the body reacts that the previous experience is 'recalled' and is then the focus of that persons cognition (thoughts).

What is in the unconscious is any experience not currently being consciously attended to.

At the deepest level of the unconscious are the repetitive actions that become so imbedded as to not require any particular state of mind.

Riding a bike, playing an instrument that we've played for many years, going to bathroom, tying a shoe, taking a drink out of a cup, waking up at the same time every single day, whether we actually get up or not. Conditioning that has become so innate that it no longer required conscious thought - therefore it no longer requires a physiological reaction, so it is not associated with any particular state of mind.

That being said - we can't rule out that genetics, and the role it plays in personality, are not, in some way, responsible for how we respond to any given situation.

I don't believe there is anything in the unconscious that is not a part of our past empirically received experiences.

I do think there are thing in our unconscious which we are not able to recall on demand, however, we still have access to them, through the 'state of mind' connections. That does not mean we remember why we have reacted in a certain way, but our body does.