Consciousness is the fact of awareness of our thinking, feeling and doing. That is to say things that are done by a person, when the person knows that he is doing them. Although what a person does i.e. 'the response to external stimuli' may differ from person to person or even in the same person from time to time, the fact that every person is capable of responding, or reacting, is taken as a sign of consciousness. These conscious acts are referred to as the actions of the conscious mind. Similarly, but in the exactly opposite sense, certain acts are performed reflexively or without conscious awareness.

Say for example, the mind starts and continues to think about bad things even when the person does not want to think about them. This is from where thoughts like anger, hate, jealousy, lust and even the desire to harm others arise. These thoughts arise from the subconscious mind- which is an aggregate of the previous experiences of a person. The basis of these experiences is the manner in which the person feels, thinks and what he does. These experiences are stored in the form of subtle impressions in the subconscious mind. These impressions have a relationship with each other and their interaction with each other produces tendencies. It is these tendencies, which are stored in the subconscious mind, that determine how a person reacts in a particular situation.

The resultant of all the tendencies, as a whole, determines the character of a person. Depending on the strength and nature of their character people respond to the same situation in different ways i.e. the reaction differs according to the character of the individual. The entire concept of subconscious mind can be explained with a simple illustration. The world and its people have many preconceived notions about the subconscious mind. One mustn't formulate opinions before knowing the intricacies of anything and moreover, the subconscious mind is an issue that needs to be studied in the minutes of details.

Myths

The first myth is that subconscious memories fuel neurotic or psychotic behavior. This belief is bolstered by many psycho thriller movies. There is no scientific evidence for this and psychotic behavior is the result of many factors, including chemical imbalances in the brain. Then there is the belief that the subconscious mind is the reservoir of transcendent truths, no scientific proof has ever been offered for this theory.

Furthermore the line separating subconscious mind from the unconscious is very thin. This is because there is sufficient scientific proof to establish that some conscious perception goes on without self consciousness. It means that it is possible to be unaware of having experienced something and being unable to remember the experience, but still give evidence that one has experienced the same. Also it is possible that perfectly normal people give evidence that they have seen or heard something even though they are not conscious of having seen or heard the item in question.