I imagine consciousness like an energetic field that can be shifted, reshaped, resized, etc., and where it resides normally is probably a matter of habit more than anything else. Mine usually feels like it's in my head, but I shift it down to my heart when I'm tuning-in to intuition.
Carlos Castaneda claimed that the location of our awareness actually determines what information enters into our field perception and that the collective awareness of a shared world was the result of having this point of awareness conditioned to the same location, causing us to perceive the same channels of energy. Since he also thought that different planes of existence were coterminous with our world, he proposed that a big enough shift could actual cause you to physically change location or form. He claimed his final test from his teacher was to jump off a cliff and shift to another world before splattering on the ground below. Talk about a leap of faith!
I haven't had any experience to prove or disprove those conclusions, but I have tried shifting my awareness around during meditation, and I can sense differences, both physically and in terms of perceptions.
--Andy
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