What are the effects of being conscious of one's own consciousness?
Being conscious of yourself in general is known to often cause anxiety, stress, and depression. Perhaps this is largely related to the negative influence on one’s mind caused by social anxiety, as I covered in a post from almost 10 months ago; Conscious Anxiety. The stress and anxiety from self consciousness (which leads to social anxiety) likely comes from the instinct to be stressed that others in someone's social environment will not accept them. In the past, not being accepted would often mean being forced out of a tribe or village, and someone would be left to fend for themselves and much more likely to die. The long history of this aspect would likely cause an instinct of negative reinforcement in the form of stress, to develop more strongly so that people would be more careful with what they do in social situations. This instinct would have a heavier influence on some more than others, based on genetics and would cause unnecessary and excessive stress and anxiety in many scenarios. So if self consciousness often results in anxiety, does that mean someone being conscious of their own consciousness would as well?
It likely could, with the relevant factors involved. If self awareness only causes anxiety due to an instinct to stress about others rejecting the individual, then anxiety from being self conscious or conscious conscious would result in scenarios with others around, but not when the individual is on their own. It seems common for someone to have much less anxiety about their actions when they are by themselves and not being watched. Most people likely feel more casual and less stressed about doing whatever they want when they are by themselves, as long as they are in a safe environment to not have alternative stress. This is likely because the instinct would not be triggered, to fear being excluded for doing something others don't like.
If self consciousness would most often not result in anxiety when someone is by themselves, does that mean conscious consciousness would be the same? Someone being conscious of their own consciousness is more specific than general self consciousness, since they are paying attention to their own ability to be aware and comprehensional of things in their surroundings or in their thoughts. Since it is a portion of being self conscious, it can likely trigger the instinctual stress of social anxiety when in a social setting, but when someone is alone, or for someone who has no instincts of social anxiety in general, there seems to be no direct cause for anxiety. But perhaps it can sometimes trigger other instincts of anxiety.
For someone to be conscious of their own mind and awareness, it seems likely it can lead to perceptions of uncertainty. Unknowns are a big cause of anxiety, since what is not known, has the potential to harm. When more aspects of something are known, an individual can feel more secure. This instinct to be stressed about the unknown would come from the past of unknown areas being a danger from predators, nature, or other humans. So the instinct of stress from unknowns, can likely often be triggered by someone being conscious of their own consciousness, leading to them perceiving some of the biggest unknowns and uncertainties of life. Some connected consecutive unknowns could be; wondering where they themselves and life in general came from, what the significance is of themselves and humanity, where their life and humanity will lead in the future, when will their consciousness cease to exist, should they be accomplishing more, etc etc.
Besides these potential anxieties being a side effect of conscious consciousness, someone being aware of their own ability to comprehend can allow the advantage to utilize their conscious comprehension more frequently and effectively. As I wrote about recently in a post; Pre-Thought, pre-considering many things in life in general can be very beneficial, and the overarching mechanism to do so, would be conscious thought. So pre-thought of one's own consciousness could lead to more pre-thought of everything else, which should lead to more rational, accurate, effective, and beneficial thoughts and decisions in the future.
So it seems, awareness of consciousness is a particular aspect of self consciousness, which can both lead to anxiety, due to instinctual triggers for stress of unknowns, or being forced out of a social environment. But those anxieties can be overcome through comprehension and repetition with positive reinforcement, and some anxieties of unknowns can be utilized for motivation of improvement in life. Additionally, the anxieties are not a direct trigger or fundamental part of self mind-awareness. So, as it seems with mostly any aspect of life, through comprehension and understanding, the beneficial components of the concept can be utilized beneficially. Since this can be applied to mostly any concept using consciousness, it should be especially beneficial to apply it to the overarching concept and application itself, of Consciousness of Consciousness.
