In Meditation for Dummies Stephan Bodian offers thoughtful suggestions for investigating consciousness. In Chapter 6 ("Meditation 101: Relaxing Your Body and Calming Your Mind") he discusses four "dimensions" to explore:

Content to process: Instead of becoming engrossed in the meaning of what you're sensing or thinking or feeling, you can shift your interest and attention to how experiencing occurs — or to the mere fact of experience itself. For example, instead of getting lost in thinking or daydreaming, you can notice how your mind flits from thought to thought — or merely observe that you're thinking. ...

Outer to inner: Initially, you need to balance your usual tendency to be so outer-directed by paying particular attention to inner experience. Eventually, you'll be able to bring the same quality of awareness to every experience, whether inner or outer.

Secondhand to direct: Even more helpful than inner and outer is the distinction between secondhand experience and direct experience. Secondhand experience has been filtered and distorted by the mind, whereas direct experience is mediated through the senses or some other form of direct awareness. ...

Doing to being: You spend virtually all your waking hours rushing from one task or project or activity to another. Do you remember what it's like to just be, the way you did when you were a baby or a little child ... ? Meditation gives you the opportunity to make this crucial shift from doing to being.

(cf. Awareness, No Blame, Change, Being with Your Breath, Breath and Awareness, Mental Noting, Not Always So, Rebalancing Doing and Being, The Watcher, Without Effort, Analysis, or Expectation, ...) - ^z - 2011-04-17