-nə̇s noun
( -es )
1.
a. : awareness or perception of an inward psychological or spiritual fact : intuitively perceived knowledge of something in one's inner self
b. : inward awareness of an external object, state, or fact
a consciousness … of what really is at stake in modern philosophy — Hannah Arendt
c. : concerned awareness : interest , concern — often used with an attributive noun
tax consciousness
class consciousness
rank consciousness
2. : the state or activity that is characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, or thought : mind in the broadest possible sense : something in nature that is distinguished from the physical
3. : the totality in psychology of sensations, perceptions, ideas, attitudes, and feelings of which an individual or a group is aware at any given time or within a particular time span — compare stream of consciousness
4. : waking life (as that to which one returns after sleep, trance, fever) wherein all one's mental powers have returned
the ether wore off and the patient regained consciousness
5. : the part of mental life or psychic content in psychoanalysis that is immediately available to the ego — compare preconscious , unconscious 2