States Of Consciousness

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States of Consciousness
We all go through different states of consciousness every day of our lives. These states include being wide awake (162), being asleep (165), and for some of us, even altered states of consciousness (176). There are also many states of consciousness in-between each of these.
Being “awake” is when we are at our full state of awareness. This is the part of consciousness that we spend most of our time in. This is considered the highest state of consciousness because it is the one that we compare all of our other states to. During awake-time though, we may enter other stages of consciousness, such as daydreaming (162), divided consciousness (162-3), or the unconscious mind (163). During all of these stages we are still awake, but our brain is working on a less “aware” level.
Daydreaming (162) is when we think, feel, or imagine something that is not necessarily logical or likely to happen. I personally catch myself daydreaming a lot during school or work. I find that when I do not want to focus on the topic at hand, I tend to let my brain take me somewhere else in a daydream. Psychologists have proved that daydreams are probably a distorted reflection of our emotions and concerns.
Divided consciousness (162-3) happens quite often during awake-time. You may not realize that your brain is two places at once. This happens to me quite often during my commute to and from school. I often forget most of the drive because I have been concentrating on other thoughts, such as pageants, Christmas gifts, or my dog. This is quite common, although somewhat alarming, because in my case, I was driving at around 50 mph and I don’t even remember it!
The unconscious mind (163) is actually a concept that many professional psychologists dismissed in the past. Now, however, the unconscious mind is playing an important role in the study of consciousness and science. The unconscious mind is when a pe...