Consciousness

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Consciousness is one of the simplest and, at the same time, most complex concepts in psychology. It is simple, because most people have basic understanding of it and that it exists. One writer stated that "The presence of consciousness is a self-evident and personally experienced axiomatic truth requiring no testimony of any kind." (Yathindradasa, 1999) It is complex, because of its difficulty to define and fully describe, the many theories concerning it, and the fact that we often use the term vaguely and ambiguously. For example, the term is sometimes used to refer to a general state of mind -- awareness, not unconscious or passed out -- and other times to the contents of the mind -- the information or actions of which you are aware (Zimbardo & Gerrig, 1999, 188.) In this lesson, we will not provide a thorough study of the various theories of consciousness, but instead try to provide a general overview of the mainstream view of consciousness. We will then move on to discuss circadian rhythms, which can be thought of as cycles that influence the waking and sleeping states, two states of consciousness.

A concise definition of consciousness is awareness of self and surroundings, but this can be greatly expounded upon. Consciousness can be thought of as having four categories:

1. Awareness of your external environment -- You know of and monitor the existence of environmental stimuli, which are anything (objects, action, sounds, smells, etc.) in your environment.
2. Reflection on environment stimuli -- You can mentally consider aspects of your environment and process information. This involves symbolic thought, because your mind can consider and reflect on the environmental stimuli even in their absence.
3. Awareness of yourself -- This can be compared to #1, because just as you are aware of concrete objects in your environment, you recognize yourself as one of these concrete objects. Also, just as you are aware of action in your environment, you are aware of your own internal processes like breathing and your heart beating.
4. Awareness of your thoughts -- This can be compared to #2, because it is more abstract. We have already established that consciousness involves thinking, but in addition to that you can be aware of your thinking. You are aware of thoughts and feelings and importantly, you connect them to your self.

Now that we have described consciousness, you might wonder what are the contents of consciousness. Observations ("Bob sneezed," "there is a tree," "I feel hungry," etc), facts and knowledge (your birthday, scientific terms, math concepts, procedures like how to tie your shoe), memories (visual or verbal records of past contents), and thought processes (planning, analyzing, rationalizing) are all contents of consciousness. All of these contents are constantly changing or flowing through consciousness. Recognizing this, William James coined the term "stream of consciousness." You do not always have to be aware of what is in consciousness (#4 Awareness of your thoughts), but you can direct your attention to do so. When you do monitor your stream of consciousness, it may seem like a running conversation with yourself.

Some psychologists believe that there are more contents in the mind than those which are in consciousness. They distinguish consciousness as simply one of several levels of awareness in the mind. The other levels are call nonconscious, preconscious, unattended information, and unconscious. Note that, in describing consciousness we referred to awareness many times and outlined categories of awareness, but do not confuse these with levels of awareness, which indicate the degree of awareness. Basically, the things of which we have full awareness are in consciousness. Most bodily processes that we perform are nonconscious, because they take place automatically without our conscious direction. The preconscious includes information that is not immediately conscious, but can be called into conscious, at any moment. For example, your middle name or a friend's phone number. The fan whirring in the background or a side conversation at a party are examples of unattended information, because, on some level of awareness we are registering them, but we do not have to recognize them consciously. Contents of the unconscious are things that cannot be made conscious.