I want to read up on this topic. What are some good resources?

As I can think about it now, I don't see how me experiencing life is any different, fundamentally than how another organism would. Isn't it all just perception of stimuli? What is consciousness defined as: being able to think, to self-reference, and/or to "be aware"? Aren't the first two just products of a more developed mind/intelligence? And what does it mean to "be aware"? Is anything that experiences/perceives the world "aware"? How are these questions approached and tested?

I just have this lingering feeling that nothing about existing as a human is different enough for me to believe we're the only truly conscious beings, which is what almost everyone seems to naturally think. Then again, I have never read on the subject