the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
2.
the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people: the moral consciousness of a nation.
3.
full activity of the mind and senses, as in waking life: to regain consciousness after fainting.
4.
awareness of something for what it is; internal knowledge: consciousness of wrongdoing.
5.
concern, interest, or acute awareness: class consciousness.
6.
the mental activity of which a person is aware as contrasted with unconscious mental processes.
7.
Philosophy. the mind or the mental faculties as characterized by thought, feelings, and volition.
—Idiom
8.
raise one's consciousness, to increase one's awareness and understanding of one's own needs, behavior, attitudes, etc., esp. as a member of a particular social or political group.
consciousness, in psychology, a term commonly used to indicate a state of awareness of self and environment. In Freudian psychology, conscious behavior largely includes cognitive processes of the ego, such as thinking, perception, and planning, as well as some aspects of the superego, such as moral conscience. Some psychologists deny the distinction between conscious and unconscious behavior; others use the term consciousness to indicate all the activities of an individual that constitute the personality. In recent years, neuropsychologists have begun to investigate the links between consciousness and memory, as well as altered states of consciousness such as the dream state. See also defense mechanism; psychoanalysis.
See D. C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (1991); A. Damasto, The Feeling of What Happens (1999).
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