The experience of “being a self” is a subset of conscious contents, encompassing experiences of having a particular body, a first-person perspective, a set of unique memories, as well as experiences of moods, emotions, and “free will.” Selfhood is probably the aspect of consciousness that we cling to most tightly, so tightly that it can be tempting to confuse self-consciousness (the experience of being a self) with consciousness itself (the presence of any kind of subjective experience, of any phenomenology, whatsoever).
