All 50 Uses of
conscious
in
The Magic Mountain
- He was annoyed with himself for being in such bad shape, and with the leery self-consciousness of youth he detected traces of an indulgent smirk in the assistant director's reassuring smile.†
Chpt 1.3 *self-consciousness = nervousness or discomfort felt by someone due to concern about what others will think of them
- But let us not intentionally obscure a clear state of affairs: the extraordinary pastness of our story results from its having taken place before a certain turning point, on the far side of a rift that has cut deeply through our lives and consciousness.†
Chpt Frwd.
- The old man understood and nodded and went on eating, sitting very erect between the high mahogany back of his chair and the table, barely bending forward to his plate; and his grandson, seated opposite, would watch with silent, profound, and unconscious attention as his grandfather's hands—beautiful, white, gaunt, aged hands, with rounded, sharply tapered fingernails and a green signet ring on the right forefinger— arranged a bite of meat, vegetable, and potato on the tip of the fork with a few practiced motions and guided it to the mouth with just the least forward tip of the head.†
Chpt 2.1unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- And this was how the old man was viewed, both during his lifetime and after, by his fellow citizens; and even though little Hans Castorp understood nothing about the affairs of government, the perceptions gained by his own calm, alert child's eye were much the same—unspoken and therefore uncritical perceptions, though enthusiastic for all that, which when they later became conscious memories retained their exclusively positive stamp, immune to all discussion or analysis.†
Chpt 2.1
- And although this harmless vice added a jaunty touch to his appearance, the ultimate effect was much more that of the license of old age, the kind of carelessness that age either consciously and merrily permits itself or brings with it, cloaked in dignified oblivion; in any case, it was the only such carelessness in his grandfather's appearance that little Hans Castorp's sharp eye ever observed.†
Chpt 2.1
- And if you were to hear him talking—in his nonchalant, reasonable way, his voice a little hollow and monotone, with just a hint of Plan—or even if you just saw him there, so blondly correct, his hair nicely trimmed, his head with the stamp of something classic about it, his air cool and languid, suggesting an inherited, unconscious arrogance, then you could not doubt that this Hans Castorp was an honest, unadulterated product of the local soil, superbly at home in it—even he himself, had he ever actually considered the matter, would not have doubted it for a moment.†
Chpt 2.2unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- A human being lives out not only his personal life as an individual, but also, consciously or subconsciously, the lives of his epoch and contemporaries; and although he may regard the general and impersonal foundations of his existence as unequivocal givens and take them for granted, having as little intention of ever subjecting them to critique as our good Hans Castorp himself had, it is nevertheless quite possible that he senses his own moral well-being to be somehow impaired by the lack of critique.†
Chpt 2.2
- if the impersonal world around him, however, if the times themselves, despite all their hustle and bustle, provide him with neither hopes nor prospects, if they secretly supply him with evidence that things are in fact hopeless, without prospect or remedy, if the times respond with hollow silence to every conscious or subconscious question, however it may be posed, about the ultimate, unequivocal meaning of all exertions and deeds that are more than exclusively personal—then it is almost inevitable, particularly if the person involved is a more honest sort, that the situation will have a crippling effect, which, following moral and spiritual paths, may even spread to that individual's physi†
Chpt 2.2
- Standing erect behind his chair, Hans Castorp bowed stiffly and cordially to his table-mates as Joachim formally introduced them, although he barely looked at them, let alone made a conscious note of their names.†
Chpt 3.2
- It doesn't do that for our conscious minds, we simply assume it does, just for the sake of convenience.†
Chpt 3.5
- And besides, I prefer snuffing out the conscious mind on the spot, and can do so by applying one of these pretty little foreign objects to this interesting organ ...†
Chpt 3.8
- IN TIME he lost consciousness.†
Chpt 3.9
- Fear, conventionality, aversion born of modesty, the quivering longing for purity—all these repressed love, held it chained in darkness, at best giving in only partially to its wild demands, but certainly never permitting them a conscious, active existence in all their variety and vigor.†
Chpt 4.6
- It was second nature to them, and such a universally accepted practice that you hardly even thought about it, just accepted it unconsciously, without further ado.†
Chpt 4.6 *unconsciously = not in a self-aware mannerstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.
- He spoke of hidden suffering, of shame and affliction, of the redemptive effects of analysis; he praised the effects of light piercing the dark unconscious, explained that illness could be transformed again into conscious emotion, admonished them to trust, promised recovery.†
Chpt 4.6unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- He spoke of hidden suffering, of shame and affliction, of the redemptive effects of analysis; he praised the effects of light piercing the dark unconscious, explained that illness could be transformed again into conscious emotion, admonished them to trust, promised recovery.†
Chpt 4.6
- Strangely enough, it was the day he heard Frau Chauchat speak German that this general sense of superiority became especially vivid, that he was perhaps even conscious of it for the first time.†
Chpt 4.9
- "You seem surprised to see me, Herr Castorp," he had said in his gentle baritone; his consciously affected, drawling accent had an exotic, palatalized r—not a rolled r, but simply a single tap of the tongue just behind the upper front teeth.†
Chpt 5.1
- Maybe my own unconscious tendency to illness had something to do with my finding it unnatural.†
Chpt 5.1unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- He is barely conscious, but even in that state he steps to one side to allow her to precede him through the door.†
Chpt 5.4
- At the same time he was subject to fits of drowsiness, so that whether by broad daylight or on moonlit evenings he would often drop off as he thumbed through his books (of which more later), and after a few minutes of unconsciousness, resume his research where he had left off.†
Chpt 5.7unconsciousness = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciousness means not and reverses the meaning of consciousness. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- Consciousness, as sensitivity to stimuli, was undoubtedly aroused to some extent at even the lowest, most undeveloped stages of its occurrence; it was impossible to tie the emergence of consciousness to any particular point in life's general or individual history—to link it, for instance, to the presence of a nervous system.†
Chpt 5.7
- Consciousness, as sensitivity to stimuli, was undoubtedly aroused to some extent at even the lowest, most undeveloped stages of its occurrence; it was impossible to tie the emergence of consciousness to any particular point in life's general or individual history—to link it, for instance, to the presence of a nervous system.†
Chpt 5.7
- Consciousness of self was an inherent function of matter once it was organized as life, and if that function was enhanced it turned against the organism that bore it, strove to fathom and explain the very phenomenon that produced it, a hope-filled and hopeless striving of life to comprehend itself, as if nature were rummaging to find itself in itself—ultimately to no avail, since nature cannot be reduced to comprehension, nor in the end can life listen to itself.†
Chpt 5.7
- The second spontaneous generation, the birth of the organic from the inorganic, was only the sad progression of corporeality into consciousness, just as disease in an organism was the intoxicating enhancement and crude accentuation of its own corporeality.†
Chpt 5.7
- The director himself was present at the meal, and it was he who, together with Nurse Mylendonk and a few stalwart young diners, carried the ecstatic teacher just as he was—blue, stiff, contorted, and still foaming at the mouth—from the dining hall to the lobby, where the doctors, the head nurse, and other personnel were observed working over the unconscious man for a while, after which he was carried away on a litter.†
Chpt 5.8unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- To be sure, Popov might have choked to death on his mouthful of fish; but, in fact, he had not choked to death and despite all his unconscious cavorting rage had evidently quietly managed to keep from doing so.†
Chpt 5.8 *
- Frau von Mallinckrodt suffered by turns from various internal inflammations—of the pleura, the kidneys, the lungs, the periosteum, even of the brain, which would cause her to lapse into unconsciousness; a weak heart, the result of fever and constant pain, was her greatest worry, for it sometimes resulted in food becoming lodged at the top of the esophagus, making it difficult for her to swallow normally.†
Chpt 5.8unconsciousness = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciousness means not and reverses the meaning of consciousness. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- It took a while before what she had said penetrated his consciousness.†
Chpt 5.9
- During that hour his twitching lips had stammered, in a half-stifled, half-unconscious way, a great many riotous things, some in a foreign tongue, some in his own: suggestions, proposals, mad plans, and ambitions, which had quite rightfully been totally rejected—for instance, that he might hope to accompany this guardian angel, travel with it beyond the Caucasus, to the place its free spirit had chosen as its next abode, never to be separated from it again, along with a good many other similar irresponsible ideas.†
Chpt 6.1unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- He had a temperature of one hundred degrees, he could not believe he had been officially discharged, unless the director's recent remarks were to be taken as an order of expulsion, although he, the speaker, was unaware of having given any cause for such a measure; he had therefore decided, after considering the matter calmly and in conscious distinction to Joachim Ziemssen, to remain here and wait until he was completely detoxified.†
Chpt 6.4
- Such was indeed the vague, yet compelling power that caused Herr Tienappel to stare, quite unconsciously, at his cousin—with his mouth open now, by the way, because he could no longer breathe through his stuffy nasal passages, although the consul did not have a cold as far as he knew.†
Chpt 6.5unconsciously = not in a self-aware mannerstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconsciously means not and reverses the meaning of consciously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky. Also note that while many people use this as a synonym for subconsciously, experts in the mind may distinguish a difference.
- But one should not suppose he consciously took advantage of the inner strengths of the world around him and used them against his uncle.†
Chpt 6.5 *
- When Leo, or Leib as he was known in his childhood, had been allowed into a farmyard to watch his father fulfill his ritual office—with the help of his assistant, a powerful, athletic Jewish lad, next to whom slender Elia with his round, blond beard seemed all the more delicate and frail—and had seen him flourish the large butcher knife and cut deep into the neck vertebrae of the bound and hobbled, but fully conscious animal, had seen the assistant catch the spurting, steaming blood in basins that filled rapidly, the boy had watched the spectacle with the eyes of a child, which see through externals to essentials;†
Chpt 6.6
- He knew that Christian butchers were obliged first to stun beasts with the blow of a club or an axe before they killed them, that this requirement was intended to prevent animals from being cruelly tortured; whereas his father, although much wiser and more delicate than those louts—and with eyes like stars, which not one ef them had— proceeded according to the Law and administered the lethal cut while the creature was still fully conscious and then let it bleed until it buckled and fell dead.†
Chpt 6.6
- Illness battered its victim until they got along with one another: the senses were diminished, there were lapses in consciousness, a merciful self-narcosis set in—all means by which nature allowed the organism to find relief, to adapt mentally and morally to its condition, and which the healthy person naively forgot to take into account.†
Chpt 6.6
- And yet there could be no purer sleep than here in this icy cold, a dreamless sleep untouched by any conscious sense of organic life's burdens; breathing this empty, vaporless air was no more difficult for the body than non-breathing was for the dead.†
Chpt 6.7
- What he had not learned back then, however, was a taste for extending the thrilling contact with deadly nature until it threatened with its full embrace—had not learned to venture out into the enormity as a weak, if well armed and reasonably well equipped child of civilization, or at least to postpone fleeing before the enormity until contact with it verged on a peril that knew no limits, until it was no longer the last thrust of foam and a soft paw, but the wave itself, the gorge, the sea In a word: Hans Castorp had found courage up here—if courage before the elements is defined not as a dull, level-headed relationship with them, but a conscious abandonment to them, the mastering of the fea†
Chpt 6.7
- Positioned between East and West, it will have to choose, will have consciously to decide, once and for all, between the two spheres vying for its heart.†
Chpt 6.8
- Even the most manly men succumb to credulous, oblivious self-deception; the phenomenon is as natural as it is melancholy when the process of deterioration approaches its fatal end—natural and impersonal and beyond all individual conscious effort, much as the temptation to wander in circles overcomes someone who is lost or sleep ensnares someone freezing to death.†
Chpt 6.8
- His weak heart caused his face to swell, giving it a strained look that made Hans Castorp think that at the least dying must be a great labor, although Joachim no longer seemed to notice it much, because his senses were diminished and he had lapses in consciousness.†
Chpt 6.8
- The gaze faltered, the unconscious strain left the features, the painful swelling vanished rapidly from the lips, a more handsome, youthful look spread across our Joachim's silenced countenance, and it was over.†
Chpt 6.8unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- What got mixed up so higgledy-piggledy in this grand confusion were those emotional concepts and states of consciousness that define "still" and "again"—which is one of the most bewildering, perplexing, and bewitching experiences there is.†
Chpt 7.1
- We have often declared that we do not wish to make him any better or any worse than he was, and so we do not want to hide the fact that he frequently took countermeasures to try to atone for the reprehensible pleasure he found in mystic disturbances that he quite consciously and intentionally elicited himself.†
Chpt 7.1
- But since his moral states of consciousness kept "still,"†
Chpt 7.1
- All during his guest's speech, Mynheer Peeperkorn had remained flung back in his chair with his head sunk to his chest, so that there was some doubt if Hans Castorp's words had impinged on his consciousness.†
Chpt 7.3
- Holding to our principle of not making him any better or worse than he was, we can state that he simply refused—not consciously, not expressly, but quite naively refused—to let ideas out of novels undermine his sense of justice when dealing with his own sex or limit the experiences he needed for growth in this arena of life.†
Chpt 7.4
- Everything that presumed itself worth preserving and that the pallid, cowardly, conservative bourgeoisie attempted to preserve—state and family, worldly art and science—had always stood in conscious or unconscious opposition to the religious ideal, to the Church, whose innate tendency and unswerving goal was the dissolution of the existing world order and the remaking of society on the model of an ideal, communistic City of God.†
Chpt 7.4
- Everything that presumed itself worth preserving and that the pallid, cowardly, conservative bourgeoisie attempted to preserve—state and family, worldly art and science—had always stood in conscious or unconscious opposition to the religious ideal, to the Church, whose innate tendency and unswerving goal was the dissolution of the existing world order and the remaking of society on the model of an ideal, communistic City of God.†
Chpt 7.4unconscious = a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anythingstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconscious means not and reverses the meaning of conscious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- He found a long list of lieder, too, sung to piano accompaniment by artists from the great opera houses—both those composed out of conscious, sublime, personal art, and simple folk songs, plus those that fell somewhere in the middle, as it were, which were products of the intellect and yet written with a genuinely profound, devout understanding of a given national spirit—artistic folk songs, if one may put it that way, with no implication of compromised sincerity in the word "artistic."†
Chpt 7.7
Definitions:
-
(1)
(conscious as in: conscious after the operation) awake (not asleep or in a state similar to sleep where one is unaware of anything)
-
(2)
(conscious as in: a conscious effort to lose weight) intentional (done on purpose) -- perhaps with significant effort
-
(3)
(conscious as in: environmentally conscious) aware or concerned about something
-
(4)
(conscious as in: the conscious mind) mental activity of which one is self-aware
-
(5)
(conscious as in: conscious life on other planets) capable of thought, self-reflection, and will