If you want to see all the objects in a database, you can find that information in the pg_class table.
SELECT * FROM pg_class;
Now this is going to be kind of long and complex, to see how psql command handles the \d and other things. use the syntax. psql -E , ie psql -E mydatabase
What this will do is show the SQL command used for everything. So when you type a \d or something, it shows the SQL query used for the result.