I have felt this to be true since childhood. Florinda Donner wrote on this as well in her book Shabono about her time spent with Indians in South America who have no contact with the outside world. She described in the book a game they would play where they would take turns striking one another to test the strength of the consciousness of their cells (they believed the cells that make up our bodies have their own consciousness). This conclusion without any tech, they feel/know that we are made up of smaller material. It's been many years since I read the book (maybe 20+ years ago) but that always stood out to me as I enjoyed reading of others who shared what I felt to be true.

As to consciousness itself (in the manner we are familiar with), I mentioned on here to someone studying plant consciousness a year ago that I believe it is held/given life in water (being we and plants etc are made up of a lot of water and they say it is what allows for life as we know it).