What Is Consciousness? Awareness, Attention, and the Mind

What Makes Humans Conscious?

“What makes humans conscious? Humans, huh?”

Tonight, Frank found himself outside the science museum after hours.

And on the front of the building is a question that would stop almost anyone curious enough to think about it:

What makes humans conscious?

Not just awake. Not just alive. But conscious.

“So animals are over here, humans are over there, and I guess Sasquatch just gets left off the poster.”

I think that question bothered Frank a little.

Because if consciousness means awareness, experience, memory, reflection, choice, and knowing that you are the one having the experience, then where exactly does Frank fit?

Like, is consciousness just something humans have, or do animals have it too?

Is it about the brain, or is it about self-awareness?

And what about free will and why that even matters?

Because consciousness is more complicated than any simple human-versus-animal chart.

“I’m just going to take a quick look.”

And that is how Frank ends up sneaking into the museum exhibit called Awake, Aware, Alive: An Interactive Journey Through the Science of Consciousness.

But there’s one problem.

The museum is closed, and Frank is definitely not supposed to be inside.

“Welcome to Awake, Aware, Alive, an interactive exhibit on consciousness and the mind.”

“Oh, great. A talking museum.”

“This exhibit explores awareness, attention, self-awareness, altered states, and the brain.”

Welcome to Lesson Fifteen

Welcome back to The Psychology Notebook.

This is lesson fifteen in module three, Consciousness and the Mind.

In this module, we are moving into some of the strangest and most fascinating parts of psychology.

In lesson fifteen, we are asking: What is consciousness?

In lesson sixteen, we’ll look at sleep, dreams, and why you may always feel tired.

In lesson seventeen, we’ll talk about hypnosis and meditation and what science actually says about whether they work.

And in lesson eighteen, we will look at psychoactive drugs and how substances affect the brain and behavior.

So make sure to subscribe and smash that bell icon so you don’t miss out on Frank’s wacky adventures.

But before we can understand sleep, dreams, meditation, hypnosis, and drugs, we have to begin with the bigger question:

What does it mean to be conscious?

“I’m awake. I’m aware. I’m alive. This should be easy.”

“Proceed to station one: the free will challenge.”

“Okay, that sounds less easy.”

Station One: The Free Will Challenge

“Please make a spontaneous choice.”

“I love choices. I make choices all the time. Watch this.”

“Choose left or right.”

“Easy.”

“Choice recorded.”

“See, I chose left because I wanted to choose left.”

“Choose again.”

“Choice recorded.”

“Also my choice.”

Research suggests that a person’s brain is already preparing an action before he or she is consciously aware of doing it.

“Wait, what?”

And this is where consciousness gets really interesting, because most of us feel like our conscious mind is in charge.

We think, “I made the choice. I took the action. And now I explain why I did it.”

But some research suggests that with very simple choices, the brain may start preparing a response before we consciously realize we’ve made a decision.

Now, I want to be careful here, because this does not mean that free will is fake.

These studies are usually about very basic choices, like pressing a button, choosing between two options, or making a quick movement.

That is very different from bigger life decisions.

It is not the same as choosing a career.

It is not the same as forgiving someone.

It’s not the same as deciding who you want to become.

But it does make us ask something really fascinating:

Is consciousness always the part of the mind that acts first?

Or does consciousness sometimes come in after the brain has already started preparing the action?

“So my brain might start moving before I know I’ve chosen?”

Sometimes, yes, especially with simple actions.

And that makes consciousness a little more complicated, because maybe consciousness is not always the driver.

Sometimes it may be more like the narrator.

It’s the part of the mind that says, “I chose that. I meant to do that. That was my reason.”

But by the time we explain it, the brain and body may have already started moving.

So consciousness may not always be the first thing to act.

Sometimes it may be the part of us that notices, interprets, and explains what just happened.

Your Turn: Make a Choice

“Viewer’s turn. Choose left or right.”

Now, let’s try it.

Pick one. Left or right?

Don’t overthink it. Just choose.

Now ask yourself: When did you feel the choice happen?

Did it feel like you built the decision step by step, or did the answer just sort of appear in awareness?

That little moment when you were mentally deciding is one of the reasons consciousness is so hard to explain.

“I don’t like the idea that my brain is doing things before I know about it.”

And that is exactly why this lesson matters.

Because consciousness is not the same thing as everything happening in the brain.

Consciousness is the part of mental life that we are aware of.

“Proceed to station two: the stream room.”

“Was that security? Probably just conscious building noises.”

“Okay, this room is doing a lot.”

Station Two: Stream of Consciousness

One of the most famous ideas in the history of psychology comes from William James.

William James described consciousness as a stream.

And that phrase is important, because consciousness does not usually feel like separate little boxes.

It’s not usually “thought, stop; sound, stop; memory, stop; feeling, stop.”

It feels more like a flow.

Thoughts blend into sensations.

Sensations trigger memories.

Memories create emotions.

Emotions change what we notice.

And attention keeps moving from one thing to another.

“So consciousness is less like a filing cabinet and more like a river.”

Exactly.

Right now, you may be aware of this video, my voice, the screen in front of you, the feeling of your body, a noise in the room, or maybe whether you’re tired or hungry.

Your consciousness is not holding only one thing forever.

It is moving.

“That is the stream.”

Your Turn: Internal and External Awareness

“Visitor prompt: Name one external thing and one internal thing in your awareness.”

Try this for a second.

Name one thing outside of you that you are aware of.

Maybe a sound, a light, a temperature, the screen.

Now name one thing inside of you.

A thought, a feeling, a body sensation, a memory, hunger, tiredness.

That mix of inner and outer awareness is part of consciousness.

“External: glowing museum river room. Internal: concern.”

That’s a great example.

Consciousness includes awareness of the outside world and awareness of internal experience.

So when we ask, “What is consciousness?” one answer is:

Consciousness is knowing or being aware of ongoing experiences, both inside us and around us.

The English word for conscious is connected to the Latin idea of knowing or being aware.

So from the beginning, consciousness has always been tied to knowledge, awareness, and experience.

But the next station takes us somewhere deeper.

Because if consciousness is what we are aware of, what about all the mental activity we are not aware of?

“Proceed to station three: the hidden mind.”

“I’m definitely aware of that.”

Station Three: The Hidden Mind

“An iceberg. Classic psychology.”

This is where Sigmund Freud enters the conversation.

Freud believed that conscious awareness is only one part of the mind.

In Freud’s model, the conscious mind includes what we are aware of right now.

The preconscious includes information that is not currently in awareness but can be brought into awareness.

For example, if I ask you what you ate yesterday, you may not have been thinking about it a few seconds ago, but now you can probably recall it.

The unconscious, in Freud’s theory, includes thoughts, wishes, fears, memories, and motives that lie outside conscious awareness and influence behavior.

Now, modern psychology does not accept every part of Freud’s theory exactly as he described it.

But Freud helped popularize a very important idea:

Not everything shaping behavior is conscious.

“So I can do things for reasons I don’t fully understand?”

Yes.

And that is not just a Freud idea anymore.

Psychologists also study automatic processes, implicit memory, habits, emotional reactions, priming, and other mental processes that occur outside of conscious awareness.

You may react before you understand why.

You may feel uncomfortable before you can explain what triggered it.

You may say, “I’m fine,” and later realize you are actually angry, anxious, hurt, or embarrassed.

“I’m starting to think humans don’t understand humans as much as they think they do.”

That is a fair observation, Frank.

“Warning: Museum security sweep begins in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes? That’s plenty of time.”

It was not plenty of time.

“Proceed to station four: state, content, and self-awareness lab.”

Station Four: State, Content, and Self-Awareness

This station provides three key terms:

State of awareness.

Content of awareness.

Self-awareness.

Now, they may sound similar, but they are not the same.

“Finally, a room with labels.”

State of Awareness

State of awareness refers to the level or condition of conscious awareness of internal states or surroundings.

It may be high or low, realistic or distorted.

Your state of awareness is the condition your consciousness is in.

Are you awake, asleep, dreaming, drowsy, focused, distracted, meditating, hypnotized, hallucinating, under the influence of a substance?

Those are all different ways consciousness can shift.

This is why consciousness is not simply on or off.

Someone can be awake but distracted, asleep but dreaming, meditating but aware, hypnotized but responsive, or awake but perceiving things in a distorted way.

“So being awake is just one possible state.”

Exactly.

Being awake matters, but it does not automatically mean awareness.

And that becomes important in the whole module, because dreams, sleep, hypnosis, meditation, and psychoactive drugs all involve changes in consciousness.

That is why this lesson comes first.

Content of Awareness

Content of awareness refers to the ongoing catalog of internal and external stimuli that are the focus of current attention.

If your state of awareness is the condition your consciousness is in, then your content of awareness is what your mind is focused on.

For example, you might be aware of a neighbor’s music.

You might be thinking that you are hungry.

You might be considering something you heard in the news.

You might notice your breathing.

You might remember something from yesterday.

Or you might be focused on this sentence.

Those things are the content of awareness.

“So the content is whatever is currently inside the spotlight.”

That is a good way to think about it.

Consciousness cannot hold everything at once with equal clarity.

So attention helps shape what becomes part of awareness.

Right now, before I mentioned it, you may not have been aware of your breathing.

But now that I said it, your breathing may have entered consciousness.

This is content of awareness shifting.

“I was not thinking about breathing. Now I am.”

Exactly.

“Oh, mirror room.”

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness refers to the special understanding of the self as distinct from other stimuli.

Self-awareness is one of the most important parts of this lesson.

It is not just being aware that something is happening.

It is knowing that you are the one having the experience.

It’s not just “there is a sound,” but “I hear a sound.”

It’s not just “there is hunger,” but “I am hungry.”

It’s not just “there is a reflection,” but “that reflection is me.”

“That’s me.”

That moment matters.

Psychologists have studied self-awareness in different ways, including mirror self-recognition.

Some animals show evidence of recognizing themselves in mirrors, and others may have forms of awareness that do not show up well in mirror tests.

So we need to be careful.

It is too simple to say humans are conscious and animals are not.

Many animals clearly perceive, learn, feel, remember, and respond to the world.

Some show signs of self-recognition or complex awareness.

But human consciousness seems especially shaped by language, memory, imagination, reflection, and the ability to create a story about the self.

Humans do not just experience things.

We think about our experiences.

We ask:

“Why did I do that?”

“What does that mean about me?”

“Who am I becoming?”

“What will happen next?”

“What do other people think of me?”

This is a powerful kind of self-awareness.

But as we will see later, it can also become exhausting.

“So self-awareness is not just seeing yourself. It’s knowing yourself as the one having the experience.”

Yes.

And that is why self-awareness shows up so much in psychology, therapy, journaling, personal growth, and self-help.

But self-awareness is not always comfortable.

Because once you can think about yourself, you can also judge yourself.

And that brings us to another problem.

But before we get there, Frank has to pass the attention test.

“Proceed to station five: the attention trap.”

Station Five: The Attention Trap

“Please count the number of blue flashes.”

“I’m excellent at counting.”

This station is about attention.

Attention and consciousness are closely related, but they are not identical.

Attention is like the spotlight. It helps determine what enters awareness.

But here’s the strange part.

Something can be right in front of you and still not fully enter conscious awareness if your attention is somewhere else.

“Begin.”

“One, two, three, four—wait, was that blue? Five.”

Okay, now it’s your turn.

Try to count the blue dots.

[The counting activity appears on screen in the video.]

If you have ever seen demonstrations of inattentional blindness, this is the basic idea.

When people are focused on one task, they can miss something unexpected, even if it happens right in front of them.

The mind is not a perfect camera recording everything equally.

It selects, it filters, and it prioritizes.

“Test complete. How many blue flashes did you count?”

“Six.”

“Correct. Did you notice the security warning?”

“The what? Oh no.”

Frank saw the room but did not consciously notice everything in it.

That is the difference.

Just because information is available to the senses does not mean it becomes part of conscious awareness.

You can look but not notice.

You can hear but not listen.

You can be present but not aware.

“So I was awake. My eyes were open, but I missed the giant warning sign.”

Yes.

And that is one reason consciousness is so selective.

Attention in Everyday Life

This applies to everyday life, too.

You can be so focused on your phone that you do not notice someone speaking to you.

So focused on anxiety that you miss what is actually happening.

You can be so focused on proving a point that you miss another person's feelings.

You can also be so focused on one detail that the bigger picture disappears.

Attention shapes reality as we experience it.

Station Six: The Overthinking Booth

Proceed to station six, the overthinking booth.

Do I have time?

Security sweep in ten minutes.

That was not a comforting answer.

This looks peaceful.

This station begins with self-awareness.

And self-awareness can be incredibly helpful.

When we are self-aware, we can notice our thoughts, emotions, reactions, patterns, and choices.

We can ask what am I feeling?

What do I need?

Why do I react that way?

What patterns keep repeating?

And what can I do differently?

That kind of awareness can support growth, emotional regulation, relationships, and better decision-making.

Reflection prompt:.

What are you feeling right now?

Nervous.

Why are you nervous?

Because I'm in a museum after hours.

What does that say about you?

Uh, that I make bold choices.

Are you sure?

I was.

What if you are not as aware as you think?

Okay, the booth is getting personal.

This is where self-awareness can take a turn.

Self-awareness is useful when it leads to insight, but it can become painful when it turns into rumination, shame, or endless self-monitoring.

There's a difference between asking what am I feeling and getting trapped in what is wrong with me?

Why did I do that?

What if everyone noticed?

What does this mean about who I am?

What if I never change?

Self-awareness helps when it creates clarity, but it hurts when it becomes self-attack.

Are you thinking about yourself?

Are you thinking about thinking about yourself?

Are you aware that you are aware?

Are you aware that others may be aware of you?

I would like to stop being this aware.

That line is funny, but it is also real.

A lot of people who love psychology also struggle with overthinking like me.

They become very good at analyzing themselves, but not always good at giving themselves compassion.

And that is an important distinction.

Healthy self-awareness says, "I can notice myself clearly." Rumination says I have to keep replaying this until I feel certain.

Healthy self-awareness says I can learn from this.

Shame says this proves something is wrong with me.

Healthy self-awareness creates space.

Overthinking creates a loop.

So self-awareness is supposed to help me see myself, not trap me inside myself.

Exactly.

And that may be one of the most important takeaways of this lesson.

Self-awareness is not the same as self-attack.

The goal is not to monitor yourself until you feel anxious.

The goal is to become aware enough to respond with intention.

Security sweep in seven minutes.

Then I am choosing to leave this booth.

Good choice, Frank.

Proceed to station seven, consciousness and the brain.

Station Seven: Consciousness and the Brain

Okay, this is impressive.

Station seven, consciousness and the brain.

Now we arrive at one of the hardest questions.

Where is consciousness in the brain?

It would be convenient if we could point to one tiny spot and say, "There it is.

That is consciousness." But it does not seem to work that way.

There is no single consciousness button.

Instead, scientists study what we call neural correlates of consciousness.

That's brain activity and brain systems associated with conscious experience.

Consciousness seems to involve coordination across systems related to wakefulness and arousal, attention, perception, memory, emotion, body awareness, and self-processing.

So consciousness is not hiding in one little room.

Right?

It may be better to think of consciousness as something the brain does through coordinated activity rather than a single object stored in a single location.

Arousal and Awareness

One helpful distinction in consciousness research is the difference between arousal and awareness.

Arousal is about wakefulness or activation.

Awareness is about subjective experience like being aware of yourself, your surroundings or your internal world.

This helps explain why consciousness is not simple.

A person might be awake but not fully aware.

A person might be asleep but dreaming.

A person might be meditating and deeply aware but in a different way.

A person might be under anesthesia, in a coma, or in another altered state where arousal and awareness change.

So when we ask is someone conscious, we may need to ask how awake are they?

How aware are they?

Aware of what?

Aware of themselves.

Aware of the environment.

Theories of Consciousness

Modern theories of consciousness attempt to explain how brain activity gives rise to subjective experience.

There are several major theories of consciousness.

Now, you do not need to memorize them all for this lesson, but they do help show how complex this question really is.

One theory often called global workspace theory suggests that information becomes conscious when it is broadcast widely enough across the brain to be used by systems involved in attention, memory, decision-making, and action.

In simple terms, something becomes conscious when the brain puts it on the main stage.

Another theory, integrated information theory, focuses on how information is combined in a unified experience.

In simple terms, consciousness may depend on how information is integrated into one whole experience.

And higher order theories suggest that a mental state becomes conscious when there is higher level awareness of it.

In simple terms, it is not just feeling hungry.

It is knowing that you feel hungry.

So even scientists don't fully agree.

That is correct.

Consciousness is still one of the biggest questions in philosophy, neuroscience and philosophy.

We can study brain activity.

We can study attention.

We can study sleep and dreams.

We can study anesthesia and altered states.

And we can study self-awareness.

But the subjective feeling of experience, like what it's like to be you from the inside, still remains one of the hardest things to explain.

The Final Exhibit

Final exhibit unlocked.

I like unlocked things.

Security sweep in five minutes.

I like them less now.

Final question.

What makes a being conscious?

So, what's the answer?

Consciousness is not explained by one feature alone.

And that is the heart of this lesson.

Consciousness is not just being awake.

It includes awareness of the world around you.

Awareness of your internal experience, the shifting stream of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

The ability to focus attention.

The possibility of unconscious influences.

The ability to recognize yourself as the one having the experience. and the ability to reflect on what is happening.

That does not mean humans are the only conscious beings.

And it does not mean all forms of consciousness are the same.

A human, a chimpanzee, a dog, a baby, a dreaming person, a meditating person, and a sleep-deprived college student may all involve different kinds or levels of awareness.

But human consciousness is especially shaped by language, memory, imagination, self-reflection, and the stories we tell about ourselves.

So maybe the question isn't just what makes humans conscious exactly.

Maybe the better question is, what does consciousness allow a being to experience?

What does it allow a being to notice?

What does it allow a being to know about itself?

I may not be human, but I know I'm here.

And that is a deeply conscious statement.

Hello.

Is someone in here?

Oh no.

Museum opening procedures have begun.

Thank you.

Talking museum.

Very helpful.

Frank hurries through everything he just learned and slips out the side door into the early morning light.

Is that fur?

Lesson Summary

So what is consciousness?

Well, in psychology, consciousness refers to awareness of ongoing experience that's both inside us and in the world around us.

But as Frank learned, consciousness is not just one thing.

It includes your state of awareness like whether you are awake, asleep, dreaming, meditating, hypnotized, distracted, or in another condition of consciousness.

It also includes your content of awareness.

That is what your mind is focused on right now.

And it includes self-awareness.

That's the ability to recognize yourself as the one having the experience.

Consciousness is also connected to attention, memory, emotion, perception, the body, and the brain.

It can be clear or it can be distorted, focused or scattered, reflective or automatic, helpful or overwhelming.

And while we know consciousness depends on the brain, scientists are still studying exactly how brain activity becomes subjective experience.

So being conscious means more than just being awake.

Exactly.

Being awake is only part of the story because every night we enter another state of consciousness entirely.

We fall asleep, we dream, we lose awareness of the outside world.

And sometimes inside a dream, we may even become aware that we are dreaming.

Speaking of sleep.

Coming Up Next

And that is the end of lesson fifteen.

What is consciousness?

If this lesson helped you understand consciousness in a clearer way, make sure to like this video, subscribe to the psychology notebook, and continue with module three as we explore sleep, dreams, hypnosis, meditation, and psychoactive drugs.

And if you want a faster way to review major psychology terms, you can also check out the mega psychology flashcard pack.

The link is down below.

And until next time, stay curious and maybe don't sneak into any museums after hours unless the sign is personally offensive.

Frank, right?

Don't sneak into museums.