Consciousness is variously defined as subjective experience, awareness, the ability to experience "feeling", wakefulness, the understanding of the concept "self", or the executive control system of the mind. It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena. Although humans realize what everyday experiences are, consciousness refuses to be defined, philosophers note (e.g. John Searle in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy):
"Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives."—Schneider and Velmans, 2007
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