ABSTRACT
In a very profound sense, it is consciousness that makes the difference between life and death or existence and nonexistence. What does your whole life consist of but an extended progression of lived conscious experiences? Your stream of awareness started to flow sometime between the womb and the cradle, perhaps with more or less chaotic sensations filling your subjective world. Since then, that world has evolved a lot-now you are surrounded by a relatively coherent perceptual world consisting of colorful, well-formed objects, animals, and people; sounds located in this three-dimensional space, smells in the air and tastes in your mouth, sensations of touch, warmth, cold, pain, and pleasure on your skin and in your body. In your mind, your inner voice almost endlessly comments on your perceptions, intentions, and problems. The stream of thought flows across the perceptual world: "Aha, it looks like rain ... they didn't predict it, though. All right, let's move ... do I have everything with me now ... keys, yes, wallet .. in the bag ... oh yes, the umbrella, I almost forgot. . . . " Every now and then your awareness becomes immersed in a daydream that might be accompanied by intense visual and auditory imagery, thus causing you to lose your sense of the actual surroundings.
