"Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled." - Cutter *
Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. This view is based on a simple proposition. Reality is matter.
If we have any questions about the nature of consciousness look at the material world for answers.
Everything that exists is either material or its resultant affects. If you look elsewhere you'll be looking for things that don't exist.
You don't need to invoke a supernatural dimension in order to explain the workings of the universe.
The idea that the mind and body are separate, is a category mistake. We mistakenly think consciousness is an independent substance when it is a property which arises from the blancmange in our skulls. It isn't a subject but a predicate - a property of a substance.
There is no such thing as consciousness independent of matter. The body is the mind. That's right, you're brain is thinking, not you, you're completely superfluous and illusionary.
"The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder" Robert Angier*
This means we have to accept the hard truth we already know; the world is solid, we are matter. Or do you want to be fooled?
Abracadabra.
*- The Prestige 2006 ‧ Christopher Nolan
"The Buddha declared in unequivocal terms that consciousness depends on matter, sensation, perception, and mental formations, and that it cannot exist independent of them." P.25 - What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula