Ha - I completely agree. I've been thinking about consciousness a lot lately and I think that trying to find it in the brain will be like peeling the layers of an onion - you won't find anything in there.
I think consciousness might be more like electricity to a toy train. You don't need the train to have electricity, but the train won't work without it.
The feeling of consciousness - the awareness itself - could it make up the universe? Maybe it is something like gravity?
It's quite hard to pin consciousness down in the brain. And what is this sleep thing anyway? Are you conscious when you sleep?