Consciousness is… pretty much all I do in regard to magical activities…
So… to give a really tight idea of what consciousness is from my perspective, it is the product of creation. For one is created by matter and shall become matter. Consciousness is a construct to access matter, to deligate the interaction of the mind. If you where to… have to manage all your body cells, it would be quite a mind boggling task, right?
So, the idea of what consciousness is, from the Spiritual side of things, varies depending on who you ask. A priest and a Practitioner of Esoteric Arts will most likely both give a different response on the topic, but the one bit they likely would argree on, is deligation of effort being a key stone in what consciousness is. And it is for this very reason, that ones effort (spells, techniques, environmental use, abilities, etc.) work on consciousness. It is also something crucial that do make the Dark Arts functionable on the those dwelling in the flesh. (note: I use this phrase usually for all Occult arts and I do not concieve “white” or “dark” when writing in the context of Dark Arts)
In regard to “being aware”, I am writing an entire treatise on this very topic… not only what it is, but how it can be used too… this is one of the oldest topics known in magical lore, and no matter if one speaks about Spirits, Souls, Beings, or Emotions, warfare or strategy, it can always be rooted back into this very fundamental aspect of All Magic. If one where to contemplate on the lifeless, dead, undead, and so forth… it still would be used by one not one of those, to do relate to what its effect are.
Most people have mixed feelings about this topic, and for certain styles it is not that important, but if trying to do more technical and calculative stuff, what I usually do, it is quite hard to escape this topic of comprehending and permutating the fundamental corner stones of consciousness. Because it is so very basic in many ways, it has really a wide field of use, and I am pretty sure many people use their own thoughts surrounding this topic in various ways… yet often whirl back to the same concepts over and over again… something that settled my horizon into dealing with this field of the Occult throughout the years.