Spotty, Lossy Self-Awareness

Consciousness fascinates me. Take for instance consciousness in dreams. We seem to be conscious, but we are not. We do and see things, but it is not the same as genuine awareness. Take half-awake or other passive states. Engrossed in a pleasing TV drama without ads or interruptions, we become identified with the action. Our surroundings almost completely disappear. When the drama ends, there is a sensation of awakening. I watch women shopping. Sometimes their faces reveal that they might as well be asleep. When their cell phone rings, their faces change dramatically; suddenly they’re human again. I can mow my lawn almost entirely in a state of trance, my mind repeating the same phrase over and over again. I’m active. I seem to be awake. Yet this is not what I’d call self-consciousness.

It seems that we have the potential to be genuinely conscious, thus self-conscious; and we frequently are. But all depending on our way of life, self-awareness may be much more enduring or much more paced out, as it were, arising only now and then. The phrase itself, self-consciousness, is ambiguous. In that state the self is conscious; we’re not conscious of the self as such. But when the self is not aware, where has it gone? It seems then to have been absorbed, captured, submerged in pure experience. It has disappeared. Some label this as identification. Self-awareness comes into being when the self separates itself from its experience. Then it stands aloof.

Only when the self detaches can it genuinely think and will. In all other situation—and these can be extraordinarily complex—habits and reflexes operate. Now it is worth noting that all child-raising and educational efforts of humanity are bent on awakening and training self-awareness. And its utility is undeniable. And, strictly speaking, it isn’t necessary for survival. The animal kingdom survives very well without it. The higher functions of the self point beyond biology. Living in bodies—and when we are self-conscious, we know that we’re not our bodies—we may be living in a prison (as Plato has Socrates say) or we may be in some stage of development. What is certain is that our conscious awareness is a lossy sort of power, very often absent. What we value is its presence. Our real lives are in the mental/spiritual dimension, even in this life. We eat in order to experience meanings; we don’t manipulate meanings in order to live. It is a struggle to separate the self from the fascinations of experience that can pull it into forgetting and a kind of waking sleep.