what is waking consciousness?

Answer 1

Consciousness is that portion of your brain's work that you are AWARE of. You can focus this attention willfully from perception to memory, for example. Other times, attention is redirected by the thalamus, as when your attention on the speaker in front of you is switched to a voice across the room that has mentioned your name. Most of what your brain does is outside consciousness, outside your awareness.

Waking consciousness is any personal subjective experience of reality that you are attending to at the moment...including your thoughts and feelings about it, memories, reasoning, feelings, values, attitudes, perceptions, sensations, and imagination.

Sleeping consciousness is what we know as dreams.

Answer 2

It's what you are when you're awake. The opposite is the unconscious mind. That was where Freud felt you would find the root of most problems. That's why he was so big on free association and dreams. The idea was to try and tap into that part of the mind that was not available while awake. Some people incorrectly refer to his idea as subconscious. Freud never used that term, only unconscious.