Let us take an example of 'symbolic' consciousness. Instead of the specific feeling that 'Mother is never here for me', the thought is, 'Women are useless and best ignored'. How bizarre the symbolism is depends on the charge value of the pain which is trying to gain access to the frontal cortex. Given enough deprivation, the person may come to despise women and be hostile to them in general. Women, in his awareness, are a generalised symbol upon which he projects a past, lost consciousness.
True consciousness is something that evolves from our feelings.
You do not 'lose your head' in order to feel, rather you 'find your head' in the sense of finding the right connections. Consciousness, then, is determined by horizontal access and by the fluidity of connections between the limbic system and the frontal cortex. Any higher state of consciousness depends upon these connections being in place. It is pain which raises the threshold of the frontal cortex to sensory input, keeping itself unaware of reality, both externally and internally. Repression of feeling means repression of both what is inside and what is coming from outside.