Stream of consciousness

It is often said that the stream of consciousness was discovered by the great American psychologist William James. Needless to say, the stream has been with us always, ever since our birth, before WJ. It is only that the particular way of looking at our own experience, in its phenomenological dimensions in particular, solidifies and defines itself only with the explicit introduction of this concept.

Once in a while, during the course of the day, I would think about the stream of consciousness. How subtle are its manifestations. The ups and downs, the subtleties, multitudes of nuances, anticipations, apprehensions, sweets and bitters.

Even for a brief period of, say, one minute, it is not possible to give a full description of the stream of consciousness. We can only witness in helpless promised amnesia its magnificent processions before our own eyes.

The phenomenology of subjective experience is then a hopeless battle of the ever losing and being lost, rather like the explosive grandeur of Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.

What solace and disappointment to this mortal soul!