In the site for one of my scientific thrillers, The Life-After-Death Conspiracy I posted my take on a couple of articles from Britain's New Scientist magazine, both of which bear on the subject of what we know about human consciousness, and what role it seems to play in reality.
One of the articles, "Banishing consciousness: the mystery of anesthesia," by Linda Geddes, explores what (little) we know about what happens when we are put under for an operation. In some ways, it may be akin to what happens to those in PVS. a persistent vegetative state coma.
The other article is drawn from the book by Prof. Terrence W. Deacon of University of California, Berkeley, Incomplete Nature: How mind emerged from matter. The article and the book explore how it is that the three pounds of wet matter in our heads seems to generate consciousness, while three pounds of wet stone do not.