My favorite metaphor is of a theater. The theater has has a stage and audience members who can be brought up on stage in an instant. Our attention is what's on stage while the audience members represent all of the other little thought networks which are listening in their own way to what's going on, not just on stage but in the audience. In this metaphor sensory data is like a screen that's up on stage. Not sure how physical actions fit into this but call it a WIP.

Edit: I should add that Hume and Chomsky each touch on a theater model but I wasn't satisfied with their models so this is the result.