Stream of Consciousness Examples

Stream of Consciousness refers to a style of writing that is organized around the interior flow of thoughts of the narrator. Just as our thoughts flow, unconnected and sometimes disorganized, stream of consciousness writing is often disjointed, and often lacks traditional sentence structure and punctuation.

Look at that polar bear on the television. Did I take out the trash-wait, I think I threw away a check from mom I need a drink of kool-aid now.

The bathroom needs to be cleaned. Where did I put my shoes, I think I should wear shoes while cleaning-I don't like to get anything on my feet (which are in bad need of a pedicure). Maybe red polish next time-or a pinkish orange for the spring-I can't wait for warmer weather.

Examples of Stream of Consciousness from Literature

From Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway:

What a lark! What a plunge! For so it always seemed to me when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which I can hear now, I burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as I then was) solemn, feeling as I did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen

From William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying:

Nonsense you look like a girl you are lots younger than Candace color in your cheeks like a girl A face reproachful tearful an odor of camphor and of tears a voice weeping steadily and softly beyond the twilit door the twilight-colored smell of honey suckle. Bringing empty trunks down the attic stairs they sounded like coffins.