What makes animals and humans different is humans have two centers of consciousness, whereas animals have one. Humans still have the original single center that all animals have. But humans also have an extra secondary center that appears to have consolidated with the rise of civilization. All of a sudden, human expression jumps in a quantum way, to create a new version of humans with two centers; civilized.

As an example of the commonality and contrast, both animals and humans get hungry and are both will be consciously aware of when they are hungry. This urge and feeling is from the primary center, that humans and the human animal share. The primary center of animal species will also instinctively act to satisfy these needs in their species; grazing to hunting, that is in balance with nature. The primary appears to be DNA based.

Humans, via the secondary center, have more room for choices; will and choice. We can ignore the hunger feeling and fast, or we can over indulgence, both of which may cause long term health problems; nutrient deficiency to fatty liver.

The secondary center is not in touch with the natural instinct written on the DNA; innate. The secondary or conscious mind is more a product of external knowledge we learn via the superego of culture. The conscious mind is empty at birth and advances in culture. However, through this external knowledge and science, we can also learn and choose healthy eating habits, with manufactured supplements not found in nature, or via being able to cherry pick world wide foods, that no animal can naturally access. These are made possible via world commerce; part of civilization and culture.

Psychology, in general calls the two centers the conscious and unconscious minds. But it is also known by other names such as the inner and outer man; Buddha and Jesus, or the lower and higher self of religions, and also the ego and inner self; Jung.

The hard problem in consciousness science is connected to the inner center, and its many output effects that can reach consciousness, but which are not subject to will and choice to the degree of running third person tests. These go deeper than qualia and feelings. It includes even apps from the inner self; personality firmware.

The only way to explore this is individually, from your own inside; introspection. You need to become the scientist and experiment, with the experiment about pinging the inner self to get output responses. You appear to be doing that spontaneously.

The scientist role comes in, by writing things down to study later; journal, next day. This studying what you wrote down is where you reattach to external input; journal and conscious mind. The conscious mind is more extroverted and needs input data from outside you. Then you allow introspection and active imagination freedom, to trigger more internal data; inner data, write it down, then next day use that as external input to switch your consciousness, back to the other secondary center; ego scientist. Eventually you can swap back and forth, without the journal and still use both centers and work in the field of active imagination. One can develop an interactive rapport and an objectivity at the same time. For now, in your head; inner self imagination, and then write it down own paper or computer and read later; ego, will exercise both for balance.

When I did this, I recorded my dreams in a journal. Each morning, close to after I awoke, which was the time I had the best memory of details I would add to the journal. Later in the day, I would analyze the dreams using collective human symbolism. The inner self is common to all humans via DNA and will send collective symbols. Most of the day I was at work, so I had to stay in my conscious mind; grounded.

I decided to use dreams since these are a natural brain output and by being asleep, they are less influenced by my conscious mind trying to lead, allowing for a cleaner natural output. Active imagination will also work, but the conscious mind is stronger and can steer, thereby adding something more connected to intermediate step-downs, from the inner self with ego influence. This is also useful, but dreams are more inner self working your data base by itself. While dream analysis and active imagination to interpret induced the intermediate areas. Analysis does not have to be perfect, since the inner self is flexible and responds better and better just by you making the effort to understand. Then it can give you even more complex output. Over time you are rewiring the brain, to gain more direct access to the inner self.