CONSCIOUSNESS, STATES OF. Consciousness is the great enigma. We experience it in the present moment. Yet when one tries objectively to understand it within oneself, it becomes amorphous and changing. Sometimes changes from one state of consciousness to another are not recognized until the change has occurred, as if these states were separated by a zone of forgetfulness. When one observes changes in consciousness in someone else, the description always seems colored with one's own biases and preconceptions, in spite of attempts to be objective. A physiologist sees only a range from stupor through sleep and from the normal everyday waking state to hyperexcitability. A psychiatrist who subscribes to depth psychology sees waking consciousness as the mere tip of the iceberg, the rest being composed of a vast domain of the unconscious lying below the surface of awareness, all of which is considered more...