The birth of consciousness

Abstract

Newborn infants fulfil some criteria of being conscious i.e. being aware of the body, the self and the world. They are able to differentiate between self and nonself touch, express emotions and show signs of shared feelings. They process sensory impressions including pain at a cortical level. They remember rhythmic sounds and vowels which they have been exposed to during fetal life. The spontaneous resting activity discovered in the cortex of newborn infants may correspond to what William James called “the stream of consciousness”.