That raises the question, what does the ‘self’ consist of? In other blogs (see here and here), I describe the human self as consisting of three related, but also separable domains. The first domain is the experiential self. This is the ‘theater of consciousness’ and the first person felt experience of being. In this context, it includes the felt consistency of being across periods of time. In that sense, it is tied very closely to memory. This is the part of you that “disappears” when you enter a deep sleep, flickers on and off as you dream, and then comes back on line as you wake up. In this TED Talk, the famed neuropsychologist, Antonio Damasio shares his thoughts on this portion of the self—and he appropriately notes that it is a portion that relates very directly to experiential consciousness, it also relates deeply to your core drives/needs and emotionally organized feeling states. This level of self is a mental capacity we share with other animals, and it presumably forever disappears when we die (at least from a naturalistic perspective).
A second portion of the human self is called the private self-consciousness system. In more common parlance, we can call this the “narrator” (or interpreter), because is the portion of your being that verbally narrates what is happening and why and tries to make sense of what is going on. As you read this blog and think about what it means, this is your verbal narrator working. It is also the part that includes your reportable self-concept and explicit beliefs and values about the way the world works (e.g., your religious and political beliefs). This portion of the self is what Damasio calls the “autobiographical self.”
The final portion of the self is the public self or persona. It refers to the public image that you attempt to project others, which in turn interacts with how other people actually see you—the crucial element of this portion of the self is referenced in the James quote above.