Stream of consciousness
A narrative technique that attempts to capture the continuous flow of a character's thoughts, perceptions, and feelings as they occur — without the filtering and organising that conventional prose imposes. Associated with modernist writers including Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner, the technique abandons chronological plot in favour of interior experience, allowing time, memory, and sensation to blend as they do in actual thought. The phrase was borrowed from psychologist William James, who used it to describe the nature of mental life.