Date: 1992

"Or--he must stop thinking about it--or [his consciousness seemed] like a solution of saturated copper sulphate under the microscope, when it suddenly transforms and crystals break out everywhere on its surface."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Traces of the night's possession surfaced now and again in the slowly simmering scum of his thoughts, and the experience of being so thoroughly and often displaced left him bruised and lonely."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"His thoughts shimmered like a hesitating stream, gathering into pools of discrete and vivid imagery."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1997

"They were possessing her in ways more intimate than had ever been allow'd him...interfering at orders of minitude invisible to the human Eye, infiltrated without need of light or Map, commanding the further branches of whatever flows in a Soul like blood,...she and her Captors whispering togethe...

— Pynchon, Thomas (b. 1937)

Date: 1999

"On its own this trigger, as we can see from the earlier definition, is not going to generate consciousness. Imagine a candyfloss machine with a stick in the centre that then gathers more and more candyfloss as time goes on. Think of the epicentre as the stick in the centre, the burgeoning candy...

— Greenfield, Susan (b. 1950)

Date: 1999

"Perhaps the consciousness of dreaming is the almost random formation of little groups forming in different configurations like pebbles thrown very gently into the water. One can imagine the gentle ripples easily being displaced by the next pebble as it hits the water."

— Greenfield, Susan (b. 1950)

Date: 2000

"I go back / to the world where your brain flooded suddenly though your heart / and lungs lived three more days."

— Sagaser, Elizabeth Harris

Date: 2000

"'I must have done,' I said, feeling the memory of another dozen books slide down Lethe's greasy banks."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"He hadn't yet organised his memories of the conference into anecdote and he knew that unless he gave them that structure they would slip down the nearest drain."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"I fell silent, my mood shattered like the waves exploding on the coast below."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)