What is Stream of Consciousness?

Question

Can someone give me an example?

Answer 1

From the Harmon and Holman "Handbook to Literature":

Stream of Consciousness: The total range of awareness and emotive-mental response of an individual, from the lowest prespeech level to the highest fully articulated level of rational thought. The assumption is that in the mind of an individual at a given moment, a stream of consciousness is a mixture of all the levels of awareness, an unending flow of sensations, thoughts, memories, associations, and reflections; if the exact content of the mind ("consciousness") is to be described at any moment, then these varied, disjointed, and illogical elements must find expression in a flow of words, images, and ideas similar to the unorganized flow of the mind. However, because consciousness is neither a stream nor a thing given to verbal articulation, the stream-of-consciousness technique has become as artifical and concention-bound as any other literary technique, although it may give the impression of illusion of preserving a lifelike resemblance to real consciousness. Joyce's approximiation involved the removal of customary signals, such as quotation marks, hyphens in compounds, and chapter numbers and titles. By moving the written text closer to the realm of speech, which is normally unpunctuated, Joyce gave the impression, in effect, of moving his discourse from the outer world of the reading eye to the inner world of the listening ear.

An example of stream of cousciousness from James Joyce, who by all accounts and opinions-mine included- is the master and only true writer of stream of consciousness:

O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement! (page 4, lines 11–14) -Finnegan's Wake

From Ulysses:
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD,
bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him
by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
— Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up
coarsely:
— Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He
faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding
country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of
Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the
air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus,
displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and
looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in
its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered
the bowl smartly.
— Back to barracks, he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
— For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine christine: body and
soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents.
One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles.
Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then
paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here
and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles
answered through the calm. (page 1)

Answer 2

Like most of the answers I've read to this question say, Stream of Consciousness is just that. What ever thoughts or feelings happen to stream through your consciousness. One of he best ways to do it is to sit at a computer, call up a word processing program and then turn the screen off before you start typing. That way you CAN'T edit yourself. Then just type what ever you think or feel while you are sitting there.
Example ( I'm not turning off my screen, just closing my eyes... but first I'm going to spell check. you don't spell check the stream)
oh k here i go wonder what the heck folks are gonna thingk amobht this. wonder shat Im writing.

Goodness! do my fingers get confused!

Answer 3

I would define it as writing down exactly what the human mind thinks. A thought shifts to another thought which becomes another thought, and all of a sudden you're thinking about Christmas trees when you were originally thinking of pencils. I think it'd be really hard to do, though, because honestly, I don't really know *why* I think this stuff. Just say I think, "Pencils," and then I think, "Homework" -- how did my mind get to that point, why did I make that particular connection? I think it would be really difficult, but I'm sure you could do it :) I was actually talking about this in my English class, and I think that William Faulkner did it in The Sound and the Fury -- he started off the book with a homeless guy's thinking, so it's totally crazy, but there are snippets that show the theme of the book. Also James Joyce apparently it as well. :D

Answer 4

Stream of Consciousness is the running of thoughts through your head. This can include things like physical sensations as you are aware of them, sights, sounds, smells, etc. To fully understand it, sit down and for 10 minutes, write down every thought you possibly can as it runs thorugh your head. It is considered a very useful tool when trying to brainstorm an idea; marketers use it a great deal for ccoming up with new ads.

Now my question- are we doing your vacation homework for you?

Answer 5

Stream of consciousness is a process by which you shut off the "editing" part of your brain and allow yourself to speak or write whatever is in your mind. Fairly similar to automatic writing. Almost.

Answer 6

exactly what all those people above said. Examples you can find in novels/romans of James Joyce and Virginia Wolf.

Answer 7

James Joyce

writing the thoughts as they run through your head. no stopping to tell where it came from, where it is going, what the heck is going on.

absolutely infuriating and incredibly difficult to read.

Answer 8

A revelation?

Answer 9

Itis a beautifuldayoutsideIthinkIamhungrybutIwon'thaveteayetIwonderwhatthatsmellisshouldIrundowntheroadagainIwishIwasn'thereIwishIwasoutsideIwonderwhatwillmakemegetupshouldIplantvegesthissummerItisquitehottodayIbetterrightthatessaysometimeIwonderifIhavenoughinformationIbettergodosomethingIjustcan'tstandsittinghereanymoreUnfortunatelyIcan'ttypeasfastasIthinkandI'mnotsurewhichthoughtsareforcedandwhichjustnaturallythrownontothepage.