I’m not conscious, though. I’m not self-aware. If I have qualia, it’s a very tiny amount of qualia.
How do you know?
“Very near to sleep” seems to me like an altered state of consciousness, but not unconsciousness. With “asleep” not actually being a binary state, whereby you can end up in a near-sleep state either by being very nearly about to fall asleep, or by rising into a very shallow phase during sleep.
The brain can also stop forming long-term memories while still being conscious in the moment (like being “blackout” drunk) so that your remembering self has no recollection of that period, even though you were minimally awake for it.
How do you know?
“Very near to sleep” seems to me like an altered state of consciousness, but not unconsciousness. With “asleep” not actually being a binary state, whereby you can end up in a near-sleep state either by being very nearly about to fall asleep, or by rising into a very shallow phase during sleep.
The brain can also stop forming long-term memories while still being conscious in the moment (like being “blackout” drunk) so that your remembering self has no recollection of that period, even though you were minimally awake for it.