What Are Non Ordinary State of Consciousness?

Science has not explained consciousness one bit. Neither has really religion. And why is that? Why has it taken us so long to understand consciousness going on there? How is perception possible? How is it possible that one physical object can perceive another physical object? Also, what if there are higher levels of consciousness? So we think we have a level of consciousness that's higher than that of an ant. What if there are other creatures or aliens out there who have levels of consciousness that are thousands of times higher than what human beings have. And ah, epistemic questions. What about non ordinary states of consciousness? What do those mean?"