WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?

Consciousness is the state of being aware of something within oneself. It is the basis of subjective experience, and self-awareness of the surrounding natural world. It is also the ability to experience or to feel having the mind as the executive control system. Consciousness experience sometimes can be defined at once as the most familiar and also the most mysterious aspect of our lives.
The majority of experimental studies assess consciousness by asking human subjects for a verbal report of their experiments. Issues of interest include subliminal perception, blind-sight, denial of impairment, and altered states of consciousness produced by alcohol and other drugs, or spiritual and meditative techniques.
A recent review of functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies shows that subliminal stimuli activate specific regions of the brain participants being unaware. Visual stimuli may be quickly flashed before an individual can process them, or flashed and then masked, thereby interrupting the processing. Audio stimuli is played below audible volumes or masked by other stimuli. They often base themselves on the persuasiveness of the message. Most actions can be triggered subliminally only if the person already has the potential to perform a specific action.
Blind-sight occur when the person do not consciously see. They have the blindness on only one side of their visual field. The brain contains several mechanisms involved in vision. Consider 2 systems in the brain which evolved at different times. The first that evolved is more primitive and resembles the visual system of animals such as fish and frogs. The second to evolve is more complex and is possessed by mammals. It is the one responsible for our ability to perceive the world around us while the first system is devoted mainly to controlling eye movements and orienting our attention to sudden movements in our periphery. Patient with blind-sight fails to the second mammalian visual system. They use the primitive visual system of their brains to guide hand movements toward an object even though they can't see what they are reaching for.
Denial of impairment is a deficit of self-awareness. It results from damage to the brain structures and is sometimes accompanied with a form of neglect in which the individual deny ownership of their limbs.
The condition is thought to be caused by damage to higher level neuro-cognitive processes. They are functions closely linked to the functions of particular areas, neural paths, or cortical networks  in the brain substrate layers of neurological matrix at the cellular molecular level. The lack of insight is a symptom shown by people suffering from this type of impairment. There is evidence that people related to schizophrenia had some sort of frontal damage prior to it. This is the most prevalent reason why they do not take their medications.
Mind alteration is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking Beta Wave state. Beta Wave (13-30Hz) is the term used to designate the frequency range of the human brain activity. Neural oscillations and synchronization have been linked to many cognitive functions such as information transfer, perception, motor control and memory.
The first discovered and best-known frequency band is Alpha activity (8-13Hz) detected from the occipital lobe during relaxed wakefulness and increases when the eyes are closed. Other frequency bands are: Delta (1-4Hz), Theta (4-8Hz), Beta (13-30Hz), and Gamma (30-70Hz), where faster rhythms such as gamma activity have been linked to cognitive processing. The signals can change dramatically during sleep and show a transition from faster frequencies to increasingly slower frequencies such as Alpha waves. Consequently, neural oscillations have been linked to cognitive states, such as awareness and consciousness.
Nothingness is the permanent cessation of a person's consciousness upon death. In the process of brain death, all brain function permanently ceases.
In the Apology of Socrates (written by Plato), after Socrates is sentenced to death, he addresses the court. He ponders on the nature of death, and summarizes that there are basically two truths about it. The first is that it is a migration of the soul or consciousness from this existence into another, and the souls of all previously deceased people will also be there. This excites Socrates, because he will be able to conduct his dialectic inquiries with all of the Greek heroes and thinkers of the past. The other truth about death is that it is oblivion, the complete cessation of consciousness, not only unable to feel but a complete lack of awareness, like a person in a deep, dreamless sleep. Socrates says that even this oblivion does not frighten him very much, because while he would be unaware, he would be free from any pain or suffering, not even the great King of Persia could say that he ever rested so soundly and peacefully as he did in a dreamless sleep.
Death anxiety is the abnormal or persistent fear of one's own mortality. Predatory death anxiety arises from the fear of being harmed. It is the most basic and oldest form of death anxiety. Predator death anxiety is another form of anxiety that arises from an individual physically and/or mentally harming another. It is often accompanied by unconscious guilt. This guilt, in turn, motivates and encourages a variety of self made decisions and actions by the perpetrator of harm to others. Furthermore, the individual does not fear death itself because he never died, it actually reflects the dealings with unresolved childhood conflicts they the person can't come to terms with or express emotion towards.
People progress through a series of crisis in its senior days. Once an individual reaches a mature level of consciousness in their latest stages of life then the person is able to come to terms with their own life and accepts it. They become involved in a thorough overview of their life to date. When one can find meaning or purpose in their life, then they have reached the integrity stage. In opposition to this truth, when an individual after making a review of the experiences lived along their journey and see them as a series of failed and missed opportunities, then they are not in the stage of reaching the integrity level or stage. Those are the ones who exhibit the most influence from death anxiety. This anxiety can be so intense that it can generate fears and phobias of everyday life: fears of being alone or in a confined space. many of these people's daily behavior consist of attempts to deny death and to keep their anxiety under strict regulation. As the individual becomes more aware of the inevitability of death, they will instinctively try to suppress it out of fear. This behavior may range from simply thinking about death to severe phobias and desperate actions.
Religiosity is positively correlated with fear of death, meaning more religious individuals fear death more. Other studies have found a strong sense of religion in a person's life related to a lower sense of anxiety towards death.
Death consciousness become most prevalent in young adulthood (20-40 years of age). However, during the next phase of life, the middle age adult years (40-64 years of age), death consciousness peak at its highest levels when in comparison to all other age ranges.