Consciousness is often used colloquially to describe being awake and aware—responsive to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in a coma. In philosophical and scientific discussion, however, the term is restricted to the specific way in which humans are mentally aware in such a way that they distinguish clearly between themselves (the thing being aware) and all other things and events. This "self-awareness" may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, and dreams.

Consciousness is the subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill or comatose people; whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be measured; at what point in fetal development consciousness begins; and whether computers can achieve a conscious state. The word "conscious" is derived from Latin conscius meaning "1.

having joint or common knowledge with another, privy to, cognizant of; 2. conscious to oneself; esp., conscious of guilt". A related word was conscientia which primarily means moral conscience.

In the literal sense, "conscientia" means knowledge-with, that is, shared knowledge. The word first appears in Latin juridic texts by writers such as Cicero. Here, conscientia is the knowledge that a witness has of the deed of someone else.

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