Awareness or consciousness is only the tip of the iceberg of our being. The unconscious is like multitasking in a computer except that tasks in the brain are done at the same time whereas multitasking in the computer does not actually happen at the same time, but in turns. The conscious is like the computer — it is actually single tasking, but may switch from one focus to another quickly. For the un-conscious it’s as if there are many hidden conscious beings doing many tasks for us. Sometimes, in a religious experience such as the feeling of a presence, people actually feel that there is a god or a separate entity that originates outside himself communicating with them.
Awareness or consciousness is needed only when an activity must have focus or something new needs concentrating on. The unconscious brain does all the rest. You could be considered consisting mostly of an unconscious self with a bit of consciousness.
Examples of activities related to the unconscious (body, including brain):
(1) causes changes in the body for an emotional response before you are actually conscious of being angry, afraid, happy, etc. — before you are aware of the feeling of the emotion. The unconscious brain also produces feelings in us such as a feeling of impending danger. Sometimes these feelings seem irrational to our conscious brain. Research shows about 0.3 second delay before you are conscious of the emotion, feeling that the rest of your body is exhibiting.
(2) does problem solving — a sudden solution or a sudden insight occurs to you after working on a problem and leaving it for a while — solutions just seem to present themselves — sometimes at 3 in the morning! Sometimes the solution presented by the unconscious is quite imaginative.
(3) composes and retrieves the appropriate words, phrases, sentences, etc. already formed. Usually in everyday activities appropriate words in the correct order just seem to come to you automatically — again from the unconscious.
(4) processes input from your senses and organizes them automatically — no conscious effort usually needed.
(5) produces religious experiences.
(6) provides the reasoning, imagining, intuition abilities, the results of which often come so effortlessly into your consciousness. Ideas and thoughts originate in the unconscious brain and often come completely formed to our awareness.
(7) controls and monitors bodily functions. e.g. breathing, heart beating, walking, driving a car. The conscious is only needed together with the unconscious when a new problem or task is involved.
(8) causes some automatic behaviors that you are often not aware of. Seemingly instinctive likes and dislikes come fully formed from the unconscious part of our brain.
Our being is partly conscious or aware, but most of our being is unconscious — be it as part of the brain or/and as part of the rest of our body. There seems to be a continual struggle between alternative solutions in the unconscious before one solution results to our consciousness.
Naturalism and Religious Experience 