There is a general agreement that the unconscious plays an extremely important role in problem-solving. Everyone has had the experience of having the answer to a problem suddenly occur in his/her mind. One maddeningly familiar phenomenon to many people is a late answer to an important problem. One may work for days or weeks on a problem and complete it. Then, at some random point in time, a better answer appears. Since the original problem was probably completed in order to reach a deadline, this better answer often only serves to annoy one that he/she did not think of it sooner. It came straight from the unconscious as a result of the incubation process it was going through. I have found in my own case that this incubation process works. I have the confidence to think hard about a problem and then forget about it for a period of time. When I begin to work on it again, new answers are usually present.