Thanks very much for the 3 references, Slam.
I appreciate too the kind responses and insights of others.

I need to make a correction to my initial post - the NPR transcript first introduces Dr. Tucker as a "psychologist" (which I mentioned), but he is not. He is a psychiatrist, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia.

Slam, your picking up about the first step being to recognize that "CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT A PRODUCT OF BRAIN FUNCTION" is indeed profound. It was over fifty years ago that I read a book, The Phenomenon of Man by French scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wherein he wrote of human consciousnesss, evolving as another new ban or level of our earth (I'll need to re-visit his book).

Be well, - Ed

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin