Consciousness is the awake state during which mentality, feeling and body activity can occur. As
the brain-body ages and I or the ego develops, mentality, feelings and body activity belong to I or
the ego which is conscious and unconscious.
What is your overall point?
Are you saying that who these things (mentality, feeling, and body activity) belong to changes as one gets older?
They belong to the development of the ego, not to an infant; development occurs during changes.
So infants aren’t conscious?
no, but they don’t have a developed I or ego.
Ah, so they develop a more sophisticated consciousness as they grow.
no!, a more sophisticated ego as they grow
Do you think human babies are 1) like other animals who lack an “I”, or 2) always different from other animals who will never develop an “I”?
Do you not think babies are an unawake/unconscious “I”? Why do you use waking for consciousness and sleeping for unconsciousness?
Babies develop self-recognition, that others are not them, fairly early, during the sensorimotor stage; preoperational stage is considered egocentric because they think others are like them more than they actually are… they have underdeveloped theory of mind:
simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
Babies are not like other animals. Never is a long time.
I did not use sleeping for unconsciousness. I think that the unconscious is operative during the awake state. Awake equals conscious; unconscious is awake and not awake in my view.
No, the ego develops
You answered this twice, this time without the exclamation.
So far, this is the picture I’m gathering from you: The unconscious is always there–whether asleep or awake–but sometimes (when one is awake) it comes with consciousness. Consciousness, however, is just the stage, the backdrop, against which mentality, feelings and body activity occur, which causes the ego (or I) to develop.
In other words, a mind that is conscious can carry out the activity of developing the ego/I.
So what happens when it’s unconscious? You associated sleep with unconsciousness, which makes sense because one is not conscious of one’s surroundings or the current state of things when asleep. But one still experiences, one still dreams. Does this not have an impact on the development of ego/I? Albeit in a different way?
It makes me wonder what would come of the ego/I if all one’s life was spent dreaming.
If you couldn’t physically wake yourself from a lucid dream, you could make anything happen in your dream and feel it in your body while unable to wake your body. You would have much more control of the dream reality than of waking reality. Depending on the sort of character you went “under” with, you could test out many ideas you were inhibited from testing out in waking reality, but eventually I imagine it would be like Groundhogs Day (movie), except every person is a manifestation of your internalization of them, so you wouldn’t develop further than you did before you went under. It would be a lucid solipsistic coma, unless folks knew you were lucid and kept educating you despite being physically unconscious.
I prefer not to speculate or imagine dreaming. My main interest are interpretation and the role dreams play in waking life. Thanks for post.
What about interpreting waking life (Kansas) & the role it plays in dreams (Oz)?
As I recall from reading, incidents in waking life the day before play a role in the dream work which constructs
the dream.
Sorry. No help from me.
My definition of consciousness: the awake state, but what initiates it? Unconscious: the mind of which there is no awareness; it is there all the time. Babies are sentient.
mmaterialwon,
They can and it can also be incidents from months before which just lie in the sub-conscious waiting. It can be the smallest thing or word heard even that the conscious mind does not pick up, but the sub-conscious will.
Carl Jung said that if we are interested in our dreams telling us about ourselves (paraphrasing) we should copy them down, keep a journal. It might not be just that particular dream of a night but the dreams of a few nights before and those of a few nights afterwards. We need the “material” gathered from all of those dreams to understand what the subconscious is trying to say.
I guess that actually waking up would help. lol
The brain/mind initiates it - being observant, paying close attention, being in the moment. Mindfulness.
We may not be aware of it in the moment but we are aware of its existence so we take the time to be as conscious and self-aware as we can be, knowing that our unconscious can deeply influence our behavior. Know Thy Self.
There is an urban myth but maybe it’s an untested state of mind that if someone who dreams of falling, and wakes up, he is ok, he wakes himself up quick kkk no owing he better wake up quick before hitting rock bottom, and as he is falling, during the fall, he increasingly becomes conscious that he is dreaming
But, if he stays within the dream, not becoming aware that he is merely falling in the dream, and hits rock bottom, then he will never wake up to realize that it was only a dream he was experiencing, and the people he lives with find him dead in his sleep.
What do you think?
I think that the people who think that that is true almost certainly couldn’t have a single concrete data point to support it.