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• stream of consciousness
  stream of consciousness

  noun

  thought regarded as a succession of ideas and images constantly moving forward in time.
• stream-of-consciousness
  stream-of-consciousness

  adjective

  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.

stream of consciousness

¹ American  

noun

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

2. interior monologue.

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stream-of-consciousness ² American  

[streem-uhv-kon-shuhs-nis] / ˈstrim əvˈkɒn ʃəs nɪs /

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.

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stream of consciousness British  

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

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stream of consciousness Cultural  

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.

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Etymology

Origin of stream of consciousness

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stream of consciousness stream-of-consciousness

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.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025

“It’s almost like an invisible river; a divine stream of consciousness and we become the vessel, pouring that into the world. That is also what we’re talking about.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2023

As she drove to work along Lake Washington Boulevard one day last summer, TEB took out her phone and started recording a stream of consciousness about dating, romance and self-love.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 19, 2023

I think when you journal and you write just sort of like stream of consciousness you learn a lot about the character.

From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2023

When he gives notes to the cast in the order in which he has written them into the journal, they come out in a kind of stream of consciousness.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove

In this entry from September, his stream-of-consciousness writing about the Musk situation reads like ChatGPT reasoning through a messy problem:

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026

He mostly just gave his usual stream-of-consciousness "weave" about whatever topic engaged him that day, interspersed with some rote words on the teleprompter written by a campaign staffer.

From Salon ● Jan. 24, 2025

Knowing she wanted to honour her heroes, á la Daft Punk’s Teachers, she flicked through her phone 'til she re-discovered that late-night stream-of-consciousness.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2024

In 2014, he wrote a stream-of-consciousness screed for the magazine Magnet titled “From the desk of hard working Americans: Sierra Elizabeth Ferrell.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2024

Working nights, I spent my days in experimental writing, filling endless pages with stream-of-consciousness Negro dialect, trying to depict the dwellers of the Black Belt as I felt and saw them.

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright