Quote Originally Posted by Asymptote View Post
I get the feeling that the prefrontal cortex must be involved somehow, too. I guess that, since it is (I think) responsible for integrating sensory information and relaying it back to the thalamus, that you'd have to keep it awake, [...]
That would draw a bridge to stimulation methods like this or this or binaural auditive stimulation. I would be more careful with the word "consciousness" though. I would rather replace that word with "self-awareness" in this context. Consciousness is a somewhat broader term and next to impossible to define.