If there’s a molecular model of the hippocampus (one human state) in every cortical neuron then consciousness is a neuron (or clump of neurons) lit up to represent “reality” plus it’s nearby past and possibilities. There would be blocks on your consciousness experiencing those possibilities directly while your subconscious was weighing what to do next or how to feel about what just happened.
To reduce the number of connections needed, there would be some compressed signaling mechanism that would tell the individual neurons what to build onto their models and to correct neurons who’s models might be broken.
If the above were true then dreaming would be so fragmented because you’d be visiting neurons who’s models were in different stages of update.
I wonder how many bits of information are encoded in one quarter second of human sensory inputs. I mean really, we’re talking about any moment being your senses plus any symbols you’ve got stitched together in your imagination…