In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being.
Research shows that the things that concern us most while we're awake continue to mess with us when we sleep. Your unconscious brain takes your abstract fears and turns them into stories in the form of nightmares.
Ford asks us to question unconscious beliefs, to realize that we almost never do so, to understand that the simplest choices are charged with meaning, and yet that meaning can and does change all the time.
On the occasions when they have pushed to shore an unconscious human being they have much more likely done it out of curiosity or for sport, as in riding the bow waves of a ship.