stream of consciousness

¹

noun

1. Psychology.,  thought regarded as a succession of ideas and images constantly moving forward in time.

2. interior monologue.

stream-of-consciousness

²

[streem-uhv-kon-shuhs-nis]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characterized by a manner of writing in which a character's thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like.

   a stream-of-consciousness novel; a stream-of-consciousness technique.

stream of consciousness

noun

1. psychol the continuous flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings forming the content of an individual's consciousness. The term was originated by William James

2. 1. a literary technique that reveals the flow of thoughts and feelings of characters through long passages of soliloquy

   2. ( as modifier )

      a stream-of-consciousness novel

stream of consciousness

1. A kind of writing that presents the thoughts of a person or character as they occur. Stream-of-consciousness writing uses devices such as characters speaking to themselves, free association, and lists of words. William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf wrote stream-of-consciousness novels.

Word History and Origins

Origin of stream of consciousness¹

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

It’s the breath marks of Emily Dickinson, the stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf, the head-clogging maximalism of David Foster Wallace, the self-aggrandizing asides of Joel Stein.

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FAHMI: We think of the app as your stream of consciousness.

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Both the paintings and the earthenware are scribbled with an illegible stream of consciousness poetry that Finley is channeling while making the work — often only visible in texture when the light hits right.

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The most important of these is the stream of consciousness technique that’s developed in ways that had never been attempted before.

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I didn’t know what was gonna happen — whatever it was, it was stream of consciousness.

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