Stream of Consciousness: the most faithful X-ray ever taken of the ordinary human consciousness

Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The term is initially coined in1890 by the psychologist William James in his research entitled The Principles of Psychology. James considered the stream of consciousness in a constant flux. According to him, the consciousness “does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as “chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instances. A “river” or a “stream” is the metaphor by which it is most naturally described. In talking hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.” ¹

Despite its roots in psychology, the term gained popularity in the 20th century literature, and is associated with modern novelists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to mention a few famous practitioners. Their works rendered stream of consciousness into a method of narration that describes happenings as flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters.²

Other media have experimented with inner thoughts in storytelling; radio and film in the 20th century, and VR in the 21st century. Each medium has different affordances, or capacity to represent a concept; therefore, artistic and technical strategies show differences across different media. In order to show such strategies, in this blog, I highlight one example across these media at the cost of doing injustice to other examples. The selected examples are: Ulysses by James Joyce (literature), Strange Interlude by Robert Z. Leonard (film), Starburst by Louis Kornfeld (podcast), Out of Sight by Sara Kolster and Anyways (PIPS:lab) in VR. I have chosen Ulysses and Strange Interlude because they are trailblazers. With Starburst I wanted to move away from historical examples to current practices in the field of podcasting. Examples in VR and inner thoughts are scarce. Hence, the choice for Out of Sight and Anyways, two pioneering examples experimenting with added inner thoughts in VR.

Literature

James’s notion of stream of consciousness had an immediate and major impact on modern writers in the 20th century. The following passage from Woolf underlines the seriousness of the stream of consciousness narrative technique for novelist writers.

“Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions-trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old …. Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end … .Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness”.³

As a writing style, the stream of consciousness is characterized by the sudden increase in the amount of thoughts and lack of punctuation. The technique aims to give readers the possibility to step inside the minds of the characters and, therefore, provide “perhaps the most faithful X-ray ever taken of the ordinary human consciousness”.⁴

Here is an example from Joyce’s Ulysses, a book indisputably listed in the Western literary canon. Ulysses can be considered a modern reworking of Homeros’s Odyssey; its main character is the middle-aged advertising man Leopold Bloom. The book documents Bloom’s walks and encounters across the streets of Dublin on June 1904. The following passage offers the reader a dive into his wife Molly’s consciousness:

“I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes … I was thinking of so many things he didn’t know of Mulvey and Mr. Stanhope and Hester and father and old Captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly … and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought as well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then asked me would I say yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes”.⁵

The internal view of the minds of the characters drives the plot of the novel forward. In this passage, the inner thoughts mainly depict mainly memories of her husband that also help interweave the outer and inner realities depicted in the story.

Film

Strange Interlude (1932) is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and stars Norma Shearer and Clark Gable as main protagonists. The film is based on Eugene O’Neill’s play Strange Interlude published in 1928. Strange Interlude tells the story of Nina Leeds who is severely distressed when her fiancé is killed in World War I. She then marries the halfwit Sam Evans, yet falls passionately in love with Ned Darrel. When Sam dies of a stroke, Nina chooses to marry her long-suffering admirer Charlie Marsden instead of uniting with Ned.

The play makes extensive use of the soliloquy technique, which is a literary technique in which the characters reveal their inner thoughts to the audience. Soliloquy technique is often used to present information about the plot, and to provide information on the feelings and intentions of the characters. It differs from a monologue (a speech often held in presence of other characters) in its mode of presentation of information. In soliloquy, a character talks to him/herself while the other characters freeze their action.⁶

The film’s operationalization of inner thoughts differs from the play. The creative team considered certain options, but the director refused to allow the characters talk into the camera. Neither was he in favor of superimpositions. Instead, he chose for a more experimental approach: to make inner thoughts audible as voice-over speech. At such moments, the camera was to focus on the character thinking while the character’s mouth remained closed. And this already in 1932! As film scholar David Bordwell rightly claims, Strange Interlude is novelist cinema, a pioneer in storytelling with voice-over sound at the early age of the talkies.⁷

The film is also a pioneer in the way it recorded the inner thoughts. Adding inner thoughts to the audio track was technically complex in those days because recording techniques were insufficient to insert lines in the recorded text. Bordwell provides a detailed description on how Strange Interlude was made. The film was shot twice, “the first time with dialogue and monologue for each scene. The dialogue was timed to the fractions of second. Then the monologue portions were transferred to phonograph discs. Then the film was rehearsed and re-shot, with the discs used as playback guides for the actors’ pauses. And the playback was recorded on the set, with the dialogue”.⁸

Interestingly, inner thoughts are recorded with a different sonic quality than the spoken text. They are either whispered or spoken with a more quite tone than the spoken text, possibly to create the feeling of intimacy -meaning being in one’s head and hearing thoughts from within.

The inner thoughts provide access to several characters’ minds, revealing their thoughts and feelings. Let us look at the first scene that portrays Charles’s visit to Nina and her father upon returning from a trip abroad.

Charles sees Nina. A voice-over discloses his inner thoughts while his mouth stays closed: “Nina…My heart is pounding upon seeing her again”.

Nina delightedly runs to Charles, calling him by his name.

Nina and Charles embrace. The camera focuses on Charles’ face. The audience hears his inner thoughts. “Nina here in my arms. How often have I dreamed of this? Dreams…That’s the trouble; I’m only a dreamer. How she would laugh, if she could read my thoughts”.

Nevertheless, there were concerns whether the audience would make sense of the inner thoughts and their function in the story. Perhaps because of this, the film begins with a foreword, announcing that: “In order for us to fully understand his characters, Eugene O’Neill allows them to express their thoughts aloud. As in life, these thoughts are quite different from the words that pass the lips”.⁹ Indeed, confession of true feelings in thoughts and masking these feelings through speech often clash. The contrast between what is thought and what is said establishes an extensively explored theme throughout the film.

The film’s poster promotes inner thoughts as a novelty in the practice of film: “A New and Amazing Development in Talking Pictures. For the first time you hear the hidden, unspoken thoughts of people!”

Although of experimental character for a Hollywood movie from the 1930s, according to Bordwell in Strange Interlude “the monologues drain the film of curiosity, suspense, surprise, and affect. There is no mystery in it. Everything is said, every question answered in advance. It must be one of the most absolutely explicit films ever made”.¹⁰ The use of inner thoughts in this film, states Bordwell, is at once familiar and peculiar, possibly because the convention failed to become common practice. But, continues Bordwell, it was a different story in the field of radio. The technique crystalized in the 1940s and suited the conventions of many radio genres, from crime to drama. There, the power of the inner monologue flourished as a technique in its own right.

Podcast

Since the 1940s, interior monologues have remained popular up until today in radio. Allow me to examine a current podcast example, Starburst, to illustrate how interior monologue can be used.

Starburst is written by Louis Kornfeld and broadcast in 2015. It is 11 minutes long and tells the story of Matt who meets -what at first sight seems to be- an intrusive woman named Starburst at a costume-party. As Matt is the only one without a costume, Starburst suggests helping him make-up as a superhero with super powers. To the question which superpower he prefers, Matt answers “mind reading”. He gets his wish, which enables him to enter Starburst’s mind. This turns out to be an unpleasant experience for Matt who now regrets his wish for mind reading.¹¹

The story begins with Matt feeling utterly bored and out of place at the costume party he is attending. We hear his comments on the (in particular extravaganza) costumes of others. At this stage, it is unclear whether Matt is talking to someone at the party, or whether we hear Matt’s inner thoughts. Then a woman (who is Starburst as we later learn) abruptly asks, “you’re not having a very good time, are you?”. Taken by surprise, Matt replies “are you talking to… me?”. At this point, the listener is introduced to Matt’s speaking voice, which is of a different sonic quality than what is now evident to have been the sound texture of his inner thoughts. Possibly manipulated by a sound effect, the texture of the inner thoughts sound like coming from a closed place, such as one’s head, rather than exterior sound picked up by the ears.

It is remarkable that the story manages to create such a realistic and tactile experience by means of audible sound only. Indeed, a listener comments that, “I don’t think you would have been able to accomplish something so great with visuals. The fact the mixing is so well done, if you close your eyes you can imagine yourself there”.¹² In the context of Starburst, I agree with this listener fully.

Starburst

VR

Out of Sight (5 min) is a concept by director Sara Kolster in close collaboration with author Jaap Robben. Out of Sight is drawn VR and is created in 2016. It takes the viewer into the world of nine-year old Lena and her father who are sitting at the kitchen table, having a conversation. Or so it seems. Unaware of the other’s thoughts, they are both thinking of the loss of Lena’s sister and his daughter, Lisa. Their thoughts dwell upon remembering and forgetting, and linger between life and death.¹³

Trailer Out of Sight

Out of Sight offers the viewer two different perspectives of the story: that of Lena and that of her father. The setting is simple: two headsets, two earphones, and two chairs are positioned at the opposite ends of a table. One headset shows the perspective of Lena, the other is dedicated to the perspective of the father. The possibility of experiencing two distinct perspectives has quite an impact as it enables to understand how the father and daughter may experience the loss of Lisa.

Out of Sight uses certain strategies to deliver a heightened experience of the two different perspectives. Firstly, it shows the story from a first-person perspective. This allows the viewer to see the environment from the eyes of Lena or her father. First-person perspective is by now a commonly used strategy in VR that enhances the viewer’s situatedness in the virtual world. The film’s originality lies in the way it enables to hear the character’s inner thoughts, alongside their conversation. The viewer literally enters the head of the characters and can experience to be someone else.

For the sound design of thoughts, the composer Roald van Oosten chose to make them very dry. According to van Oosten, “thoughts are in your head, so there’s no room. So you take away all the reverb and you make it very dry. That’s the sound of thoughts”.¹⁴ Interestingly, van Oosten’s view resembles the sound texture used to represent Matt’s inner thoughts in Starburst.

Out of Sight enables the participant two lines of text: inner thoughts of Lena and her father and their conversation. Both texts are heard through a single audio channel system, meaning all texts are heard through the earphone.

Anyways (6 min) goes a step further in creating two distinct audio channel systems, one for inner thoughts heard through a bone-conducted headphone, and a sound box positioned on the headset that transmits the conversation between six characters.

Photo Rikkert Wijrdeman

Anyways (PIPS:lab, 2016) is a 360° VR movie simultaneously experienced by six participants. They are immersed in a conversation between 6 eccentric personas sitting in a train compartment. Each participant experiences the dialogue from the point of view of one of the six characters, depending on which headset he or she has on. On top of this the participant also gets to hear the inner voice of their character.

Different than in film in which you observe a character, in VR you embody a character. In Anyways, it was necessary to shoot the entire dialogue from POV to facilitate higher degree of immersion into the storyline. To personalize and heighten the experience of the participant, a second layer of text is added; namely, the inner thoughts of each of the 6 personas. The inner thoughts offer each participant personalized additional information on the situation as experienced by the character they embody.

The two layers of audio are delivered: inner thoughts and the common conversation, which were recorded separately. The general conversation can be heard through a tailor-made sound system affixed to the front-end of the VR headsets. Each headset is dedicated to one individual character, and the sound system delivers the inner thoughts of their respective character, as well as the background conversation. In the installation each participant is handed out a bone-conducted headphone to be positioned on the jawbone. The vibrating quality and sound texture of the bone-conducted headphone allows the inner thoughts to be experienced more intimately than the general conversation.

Anyways is not only a pioneer in the way it creates a choreography of flow between the inner thoughts and general conversation, it is also an innovative in the way of recording the text. Just as Leonard invented a tailor-made recording technique to shoot Strange Interlude in 1932, in Anyways, the director had to find an innovative recording technique suitable for VR. The conversation among the six characters was recorded prior the shooting. During the shooting, the actors lip-synced their lines, which was quite a challenge. The film was shot six times, from the perspective of each character.

Want to read more about Anyways? Please go to this blog.

References

1. James, W. (1890). The The Principles of Psychology. Retrieved on 19 August from, http://library.manipaldubai.co/DL/the_principles_of_psychology_vol_I.pdf
2. Pope, K. S., & Singer (eds), J. L. (1978). The Stream of Consciousness. Retrieved on 21 August 2018 from, https://www.scribd.com/document/270109393/The-Stream-of-Consciousness-Pope
3. Woolf quoted in Pope, K. S., & Singer (eds), J. L. (1978).
4. Wilson quoted in Pope, K. S., & Singer (eds), J. L. (1978).
5. Joyce quoted in Pope, K. S., & Singer (eds), J. L. (1978).
6. Strange Interlude. (n.d.). Retrieved on 19 October 2018 from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1039554_strange_interlude?
7. Stream of Consciousness — Examples and Definition. (2018, January 13). Retrieved on 17 October from: https://literarydevices.net/stream-of-consciousness
8. Bordwell, D. (2015, March 8). 1932: MGM invents the future (Part 1) [Web log post]. Retrieved on 13 September from: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/03/08/1932-mgm-invents-the-future-part-1/
9. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4rp4n4
10. Bordwell, D. (2015, March 8). 1932: MGM invents the future (Part 1)
11. http://www.thetruthpodcast.com/story/2015/10/23/starburst-2
12. http://www.thetruthpodcast.com/story/2015/10/23/starburst-2
13. www.sarakolster.com/Tafelgeheim-Out-of-Sight
14. www.sarakolster.com/Tafelgeheim-Out-of-Sight

This blog forms part of the Scenario and VR research trajectory, a collaboration between the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam (AHK), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), and PIPS:lab, an Amsterdam-based collective creating multimedia installations, performances, and inventions. The research sprouts from the 360° VR movie Anyways (PIPS:lab, 2016) and includes audience research, design and development of two interactive scenario writing tools Dialogus and Paperol, two use cases regarding Paperol, and three workshops with scenario students of the Film Academy to test Dialogus. The blog series documents this research trajectory. The research is supported by RAAK.