memory formation and consciousness

If you're not conscious when it happens, you don't form memories of the event.

Is consciousness some kind of pre-sorting of material to thin it down? Consciousness seems to be a selection of key aspects, of salient features...is this due to limited storage space?

Memory formation and consciousness may be one and the same thing. Is this Edelman's "remembered present"? Memories seem to be salient features of a momnet selected and unified.

Is consciousness the first stage of forming a memory? A snapshot framed? A filter? The synthesis of a moment? Likes frames of a movie (NOT to be shown in the Cartesian theater!)

What if consciousness were a REPLAY of the previous moment. The first replay of a memory. First view of a memory.

Maybe everything we experience consciously HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. Consciousness as our first "view" of a momory.

Then we need to explain memory. Memory is experience encoded into neurons.