Stream of consciousness narration plays a specific literary role in allowing writers to create a very specific narrative experience for readers. It is a way of bringing readers as close as possible to a character's mental state.

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2.  There are many ways for narrators to convey the thoughts and
experiences of characters. One of these options is called stream of
consciousness. Narrators provide readers with access to a
character's thoughts by simply narrating all of them.
 A more useful stream of consciousness literary definition would
specify that writers who employ this technique use repetition,
unusual syntax and punctuation, sensory observations, characters'
memories, and other forms of free association in their writing.
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 The term ''stream of consciousness'' was first coined in 1890 by
psychologist William James in a book called The Principles of
Psychology. James was not talking about literature, though the term
is almost exclusively used in literary circles nowadays. James was
interested in describing how people actually experience
consciousness as a continuous ''stream'' of moments. Some of
those moments, sensations, and emotions could make a lasting
impact, while others would come and go. After that the term was
applied to a style of writing that sought to mimic the chaotic yet
streamlined experience of human consciousness.

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 Stream of consciousness narration plays a specific literary role in allowing
writers to create a very specific narrative experience for readers. It is a
way of bringing readers as close as possible to a character's mental state.
Sometimes, stream of consciousness writing is confusing for readers to
parse, as there are many seemingly random jumps in the subject matter.

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 Stream of consciousness was particularly popular among the
Modernist writers, who wanted to experiment with how to express
individual human experiences through literature.
 They were interested in breaking with convention and so they
developed new ways of expressing what characters were feeling and
thinking.
 Other ways that authors can convey characters' thoughts and
emotions, whether they are using stream of consciousness writing
or not, include describing characters' actions and facial expressions
or paraphrasing their thoughts.

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Examples
 Although it is often discussed as an important form of literature,
stream of consciousness has never been a particularly common
writing style. Most stream of consciousness examples were written
in the last hundred or so years, and some writers are still using this
technique today. In more traditional prose, authors pare down their
characters' thoughts and experiences to convey only a small subset
of information to readers.
 Usually, that information contributes to the plot or characterization
in a fairly narrow sense. Stream of consciousness turns this idea on
its head, losing the distinctions between supposedly important and
unimportant information. When readers get to experience a
character's entire consciousness simultaneously, the point of the
work becomes that character's experiences and personhood rather
than the advancement of a linear plot.

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 By far the most famous example of stream of consciousness writing
is the experimental novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce.
 Joyce was an Irish writer who was one of the leading figures in the
Modernist movement. For James Joyce, stream of consciousness
was a powerful way to discuss the human condition in a way that
had not really been attempted before.
 Ulysses takes place on a single day in Dublin: June 16th, 1904. It
focuses primarily on the life of a man named Leopold Bloom and it
also echoes the plot of Homer's Odyssey, the famous ancient Greek
epic. The following passage is an example from Ulysses that shows
how Joyce used stream of consciousness writing.

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 Although Ulysses is the most famous, there are several other stream
of consciousness books that have heavily influenced the literary
landscape.
 Not all stream of consciousness books use the style quite as
dramatically as Joyce did, but they present characters' experiences
as a virtually continuous stream of ideas, sensations, and emotions.
 Ulysses is widely considered to be one of the most challenging
novels ever written, largely because of its unusual prose style.

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