Stream of consciousness (psychology)

The metaphor "stream of consciousness" suggests how thoughts seem to flow through the conscious mind. Research studies have shown that humans only experience one mental event at a time as a fast-moving mind-stream.^[1][2][3] The term was coined by Alexander Bain in 1855 in the first edition of The Senses and the Intellect, when he wrote, "The concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of consciousness (on the same cerebral highway) enables those of different senses to be associated as readily as the sensations of the same sense" (p. 359). But it is commonly credited to William James (often considered the father of American psychology), who used it in 1890 in his The Principles of Psychology.^[4][5] The full range of thoughts—that one can be aware of—can form the content of this "stream".