The nature of consciousness is such that it can only be determined by itself. If this is so then it must face two ways, towards an inwardness where it seems to know itself and towards an outwardness where it seems to be alienated from itself. Every moment of consciousness has an inner and an outer determinant, and both of these are intrinsic to it. It is as much a mistake to take it to be only the inwardness as it is to take the outwardness for a reality beyond consciousness, even if in common language the term consciousness is taken with a bias towards the inward side. What you feel and perceive seems to be determined by the outside and the revelation of the degree to which it is determined by elements like belief and expectation which are credited to the subjective ledger is always a surprise. Similarly desire and valuation seem to be expressions of the inward and we are unnerved by the discovery of the degree to which they are determined by unconscious and entirely objective factors. Notions about the self are what establish the dual entry bookkeeping that we use to make sense of experience, but these themselves are merely formations in consciousness and so subject to complete revision in the light of new paradigms. What you are could never be bounded by the subjective, since the boundary is arbitrary, but must be the unthinkable totality of consciousness, for which this experiencing self is only an instrument.