Conscious experience is like a tunnel. Modern neuroscience has demonstrated that the content of our conscious experience is not only an internal construct but also an extremely selective way of representing information. This is why it is a tunnel:  What we see and hear, or what we feel and smell and taste, is only a small fraction of what actually exists out there. Our conscious model of reality is a low-dimensional projection of the inconceivably richer physical reality surrounding and sustaining us. Our sensory organs are limited: They evolved for reasons of survival, not for depicting the enormous wealth and richness of reality in all its unfathomable depth. Therefore, the on-going process of conscious experience is not so much an image of reality as a tunnel through reality.

This raises some interesting questions about individual interpretations of reality. While we may all generally perceive the world very similarly it is possible that some people perceive more of this underlying reality and others less. Is our projection fixed or can it be modified? If it can be modified how can we do this in a safe way (I can name lots of unsafe ways ;) ? I think there is enough evidence that points to the fact that we can manipulate of consciousness in some dramatic ways. How deep does the rabbit hole go? :)