I think you need to turn the observation around. Not whether something strange is going on under the surface, but how truly bizarre the whole reality business is and how have we managed to dull our senses of it.

Consider the premise of God; Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The fact we are aware, rather than the myriad details of which we are aware.

Obviously no civilization could function by simply reveling in sentience, though given our penchant for partying, many would like to try.

Instead our greatest minds reject any effort to come to terms with, or even examine the logic of equating the ideal, which is aspirational, with the absolute, which is elemental and just tell us it's all "matter." Whatever that is.

How about time? As these mobile organisms, necessitating a sequential process of perception, that we are constantly sorting and judging, as a function of navigating our environment, then building cultures and civilizations out of narrating our journeys and sharing knowledge, we naturally experience time as the point of the present, moving past to future. Which our greatest minds codify as measures of duration, to correlate with measures of distance.

Though the fact is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Aka, causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

So time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, sound. Frequencies and amplitudes.

The energy is "conserved," because it is the present. Its changing configuration creates the effect of time. So the energy, as process, goes past to future, while the forms generated go future to past. Think in terms of a wave; The energy is what drives it, while the forms, the undulations and fluctuations from which we derive frequencies and amplitudes, rise and fall, future to past.

As consciousness goes past to future, while the perceptions, thoughts and emotions generated go future to past. Which implies consciousness functions as an energy. Yet as these mobile organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, while the central nervous system sorts through the patterns precipitating out.

While we tend to think of consciousness as a neutral observer, that might only be a conseequence of when we are reflecting on it. At night, when we are trying to go to sleep and the mind keeps flicking through its lists of things to consider, it certainly isn't just static observation. Or when we are teenagers and pushing against the boxes closing in on our lives.

So how important is this process of perception? We naturally assume it to be causal, as in event A causes event B, but energy exchange is causal. Yesterday doesn't cause today. The sun shining on a spinning planet creates this cycle of days and nights.

Our process of perception though, is more like the effect of the passage of days. Flashes of energy imprinting images on our mind to inform us of the environment around us, like stills of a movie film. Which we then sort and order, to decide what to do, what direction to take, what information to retain. All constantly jumbling around like a kaleidoscope, that we try to fit into some overall pattern and often just settling on whatever the people around us seem to think is real, even though much of it is obviously bs. Either because they didn't have much clue and don't want to admit it, or just getting us to do something for them.

So your eyes pull tricks on you? Floaters, ever hear of floaters? Those spots in the middle distance of your vision? Google will tell you it's just defects in the vision, but if you let your mind relax and not focus on them, they start to take on actions resembling nothing so much as ghost insects. Then after awhile you sense they really are other's consciousness, intersecting yours, like two soap bubbles touching. Do this when you are driving, because people are always focused on the area in front of themselves and not overly self conscious about it.

Remember the only physical reality is this state called the present and consciousness is some sort of energy floating around, trying to sort itself out. The head seeking order and the heart seeking transcendence. That dimple in the middle of your stomach is where they picked you off the tree.

Yes, life is profoundly weird and we are barely scratching the surface.