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As I was writing my paper I came across this and thought I would share it as something interesting to think about on the topic of consciousness/"I" function effectiveness, etc.:

                to see, to hear, to feel, or otherwise to experience something is to be conscious, irrespective of whether in addition one is aware that one is seeing, hearing, and so forth, as cogently argued by Dretske.  Such additional awareness, in reflective consciousness or self-consciousness, is one of many content of consciousness available to creatures with sophisticated cognitive capacities. However, as noted by Morin (2006), even in their case, it is present only intermittently, in a kind of time-sharing with more immediate, unreflective experience. To dwell in the latter is not to fall unconscious, but to be unselfconsciously conscious. Reflective awareness is thus more akin to a luxury of consciousness on the part of certain big-brained species, and not its defining property (1).

(1)    Merker, Bjorn. “Consciousness without a Cerebral cortex: A Challenge for neuroscience and medicine.”   Behavioral and Brain Science. (2007) 30. 63-134.  Tripod. BMC Library, Bryn Mawr, PA.   http://journals.cambridge.org.proxy.brynmawr.edu/download.php?file=%2FBBS%2FBBS30_01%2FS0140525X07000891a.pdf&code=81285b3b5f33a08f0244640216120c97