Two Modes of Consciousness
Sartre tells us that the consciousness with which we generally consider our surroundings is different from our reflecting on this consciousness, i.e., the consciousness of 'ourselves being conscious of these surroundings'. The first kind of consciousness, before we think about, or reflect on, our previous consciousness, is called pre-reflective. Reflecting on the pre-reflective consciousness is called reflective consciousness. But this cannot be called unconsciousness, as Freud used the term. Sartre gives the example of running after a bus: one does not become conscious of 'one's running after the bus' until one has ceased to run after it, because until then one's consciousness is focused on the bus itself, and not one's chasing it.
In this sense consciousness always entails being self-aware (being for-itself). Since for Sartre consciousness also entails a consciousness of our separation from the world, and hence freedom, we are also always aware of this. But we can manipulate these two levels of consciousness, so that our reflective consciousness interprets the factual limits of our objective situation as insurmountable, whilst our pre-reflective consciousness remains aware of alternatives.:*
Read more about this topic: Bad Faith (existentialism)
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“Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)