Self or selfness is a general concept that applies to any self-sustaining system premised on marking a distinction between self and not-self, and is therefore quite a different notion from consciousness. Selves in that general sense are relative and conditional virtual entities, easily deconstructed in thought if not so readily in practice. A self understood in this way does not need to be conscious, but since we grasp the phenomena associated with a self in an intentional manner is is hard to fully dissociate self from at least the possibility of consciousness. A self minimally seems to temporalise in the same way as a consciouness. On the other hand it is hard to dissociate the idea of having a self from consciousness, even though it might only appear in that special variant known as self-consciousness. Non-reflectiving consciousness is called pre-reflective for just this reason. What takes the place of self for consciousness is the subject, which since it is other than all objects and therefore can't be any sort of entity, is not deconstructable, is in fact what is pointed to mutely and uncomprehendingly by all deconstructions. Can you conceive of consciousness wholly without a self? The very question pushes the concepts to their limits and beyond like a koan.