Consciousness – Vedanta view and modern psychologist view
The Vedantas or Upanishads describe four levels of consciousness: Conscious, Subconscious, Unconscious, and Super Conscious. The first is the jagratha (Waking stage, Consciousness) which is known as the Vaisvanara, in this state the individual gains experience from the external world. The second is the prajna (Deep sleep, Sub consciousness), in this the Atma has retrieved itself into dreams away from the external world. The third is the susupti (Deep Sleep, Unconsciousness), here all the desires are gone and the individual is not dreaming.
It is the state of Prajna. The practice of A-kara, U-kara and M=kara is used to signify the state respectively. Combining the three (Turiya) signified by the Om-kara is the union of the atman to Brahaman moving into the final stage of conscious the Super-consciousness.
The Psychoanalytical field of Psychology developed by Sigmund Freud predominantly describes three levels of consciousness. The image below describes his theory:
The conscious mind consists of an individual thoughts and perceptions, this is what is immediately accessible to the individual. The Preconscious Mind consists of memories and stored knowledge. Things that are right outside the conscious awareness but can I e brought track to awareness by recall. Finally, the Unconscious Mind, it consists of all sorts of significant and disturbing material which we need to keep out of awareness because they are too threatening to acknowledge fully. These contain shameful memories, undesirable thoughts, and motives etc. While there is another phenomenon called the Subconscious Mind.
The subconscious mind is often interchangeably used for the Preconscious mind. However, the subconscious mind is a secondary mind system that regulates everything in our life. It is part of our consciousness process that is not actively in focal awareness. While some theorists believe the unconscious mind is a bigger domain that consists of froth the preconscious and the unconscious mind.