Introduction
There are many concepts and processes that all people are familiar with and engage in daily, but a lack of agreement between researchers or limited scientific information about them makes these phenomena truly complex. For example, a person who sleeps dreams during lessons drives a car, expresses their desires, and engages in other activities undergoes different states of consciousness. At the same time, when they perform actions or habits that they cannot explain or control, it means that their subconscious mind affects them. Although debates exist around this topic, there are certain differences between consciousness and subconsciousness, and the multiple states of the former differ according to the level of alertness they require.
Consciousness
Before exploring various states of consciousness, it is firstly essential to define this condition of mind. According to research, the main features of consciousness are that it refers to personal experiences of the world and is always a mental state one is aware of (Cherry, 2023; Van Gulick, 2022). When taking a philosophical approach, there are varied perceptions of consciousness, but some higher-order theories explain it as being accompanied by another meta-mental state. Thus, when a person wants some chocolate, they “must have both a desire for some chocolate and also a higher-order state whose content is that one is now having just such a desire” (Van Gulick, 2022, para. 9.1).
From a neurological view, the person needs to be awake and aware to be conscious (Zhao et al., 2019). Four main parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, the motor and premotor cortex, the limbic system, and various association areas, control people’s intelligence, physical activity, emotions, and memory (Das, 2021). Lastly, psychology explains consciousness as one’s reaction to a number of external and internal stimuli (Das, 2021). The more aware the mind is, the better the response becomes.
Overall, there are several levels of awareness and ability to react to external and internal stimuli. Depending on these levels, people can enter various states of consciousness, such as alertness, daydreaming, sleep, and others (Cherry, 2023). Not all researchers agree on whether sleeping is actually an activity of consciousness (Das, 2021). Some describe it as a subconscious state, which will be defined and compared with consciousness further in the paper.
Alertness
Healthy people experience this state for most of the day. High alertness refers to one’s full ability to respond to the changes in self and environment, realize and process their feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and understand who and where they are at the exact moment (Cherry, 2023). Precisely this state of mind allows people to focus their attention on particular topics or situations and engage in conversations.
Daydreaming
In this state, one’s alertness and attentiveness are reduced to some extent because the person is thinking about a particular topic and almost does not focus on the world around them. This condition of mind also allows people to perform many actions that they are familiar with automatically (Biswas-Diener & Teeny, 2019). For instance, one can drive their car while thinking about a certain movie, analyzing their day, or engaging in other forms of daydreaming. They do not pay much attention to pressing the pedals or noticing the speed limit signs. However, if an accident is about to happen, the driver’s state of consciousness should shift to alertness quite quickly.
Sleep
Firstly, sleep can be defined as a state of consciousness because of how exactly a sleeping person’s mind works. Although the level of awareness is quite low, the brain itself knows that it is entering this state of sleeping, and the individual can exit this state quickly in response to various stimuli (Cherry, 2023; Srinivasan, 2020). However, Das (2021) and other researchers state that people’s brain activities work only on the subconscious levels during sleep. This division in views leads to the need to distinguish between the two major conditions of the human mind.
Consciousness and Subconsciousness
While consciousness refers to alertness, subconsciousness describes thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that are below this conscious level. According to Das (2021), they shape the individual’s behavior implicitly. The subconscious mind may make one’s past experiences affect future actions in a way that a person can even fail to understand. For instance, when actively working on solving an issue, one’s conscious mind can become tired, but the subconscious will continue working in the background regime to later give this solution to the person (Das, 2021).
It is important to notice that only consciousness can address new situations because it can directly receive information through hearing, seeing, touching, and others; subconsciousness can be successful only with familiar experiences. The same parts of the brain work both for the conscious and subconscious mind in different modes. Similar to other fields, psychology defines subconsciousness as people’s current unawareness of how their memories or past experiences affect their level of shyness, laziness, extraversion, and other characteristics.
Conclusion
To conclude, the main feature of consciousness is one’s alertness and ability to respond to external and internal stimuli. While this state of people’s mind allows them to control their actions and emotions and recognize themselves and human beings, subconsciousness defines their activities, such as habits, implicitly and works in the background mode. Alertness, daydreaming, and sleep are the three main states of consciousness, although some researchers refer to the latter as the subconscious mind’s activity.
References
Biswas-Diener, R., & Teeny, J. (2019). States of consciousness. In J. A. Cummings & L. Sanders (Eds.), Introduction to psychology. OpenPress.
Cherry, K. (2023). States of consciousness. Very Well Mind. Web.
Das, K. K. (2021). Consciousness and its relation with subconscious mind: The mystery probed. Web.
Srinivasan, N. (2020). Consciousness without content: A look at evidence and prospects. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1992.
Van Gulick, R. (2022). Consciousness. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.
Zhao, T., Zhu, Y., Tang, H., Xie, R., Zhu, J., & Zhang, J. H. (2019). Consciousness: New concepts and neural networks. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 13, 302.