http://singularityhub.com/2015/08/02/think-your-conscious-brain-directs-your-actions-think-again/
Sometimes the ego is just an egomaniac, particularly if the super-ego is undeveloped. All hail the id!
We'd go mad if we had to do everything our subconscious does. When engaged properly, conscious decisions can be very high quality. The downside is that conscious decisions are slow, too slow for the basic drudgery that happens every day.
I am about 30 years ahead of this, albeit without the degree or the education. I wrote that the human can never fully understand what the subconscious is capable of doing since we can't consciously control our internal organs without a great deal of effort and then only in a limited role such as slowing the heartbeat, but we can't do a damn thing with the liver or pituitary or intestines. I suspected then that all living things probably have such similar ways of dealing with the stem functions that otherwise would clutter the ready conscious for more pressing needs.
Part of that thought was to address the idea of "supernatural" suggestions such as out of body experiences along with near death experiences where people claimed to have been able to identity activities around them while they were "dead". The mind is a wonderful piece of evolution but I also still hold that the micro world built us not as an intentional vessels to live in but as an accidental by-product.
When we are able to manipulate the billions of creatures that live in and on us we will grasp the ability to wipe out cancers and diseases, or simply melt people into a pool of sludge.