This might be very tangential, but I had a very acute sensation of learning something new the other day. There are these stereographic images, where they put the left and right eye's intended image next to each other -- and with a little practice, you can angle your eyes so each eye looks at a separate picture. Suddenly your double vision starts to make MORE sense than regular vision, because you're now able to combine the two images to get a sense of depth in the image. The tricky part is now to focus your eyes; at first, you'll reflexively correct your eyes too and the illusion (or the combination rather) goes away.

But bit by bit, you learn to control your eye's focal length independent of "where" in space you want to look. It really is astonishing.

It made me think of consciousness as a measure of ability to integrate information, because this process is truly fascinating to anybody who tries it (and I really think you should!) Perhaps that's because with this trick, you were able to integrate more information, and thus tickle your brain more?