The man's conscious mind struggles with his subconscious. Modern studies on human behavior suggest that everyone has a primitive, instinctive part of their unconscious mind, which becomes more suppressed as they grow from childhood into adulthood. Unlike humans, animals do not repress these instincts. Many psychologists believe that accessing the unconscious can provide a more complete way of living and understanding the world. This is why psychologists sometimes use hypnosis to help patients address their issues. For the narrator, the axolotl represents the unconscious segment of his mind. He recalls that before his transformation, he "had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself." He was particularly fascinated by the creatures' eyes, which suggested "another way of seeing." "I knew that we were linked," he remembers, "that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together." After his transformation, he overcomes his initial fear of feeling "buried alive" within an unconscious being, realizing that the axolotls possess an awareness that doesn't need to be verbalized. By becoming an axolotl, he connects the conscious part of his mind with the unconscious. However, permanently uniting these two aspects of consciousness is impossible. The man still exists "outside the tank," while the part of his consciousness that has reached this understanding remains inside the tank: "I was an axolotl and in my world." Over time, the man outside the tank becomes distant from this moment of awareness: "the bridges were broken between him and me, because what was his obsession is now an axolotl, alien to his human life." Despite this separation, the story ends on a hopeful note that the man will retain some memory of this insight and express it in a story.