Joker,
Scientology might be for you. They have a working model for how consciousness - as you think it to be - came to the human animal. Basically, they believe the dark lord Zenu killed various races of aliens, the souls of whom came to earth. Then were then brainwashed so as to not be able to remember their former lives. After that they were released from the brainwashing machines to then inhibit the human animal. And that’s where our irregular social structures came from, and our fear, and anxiety about the unknown. 
Seriously, our type of consciousness, self-consciousness, is nothing out of the ordinary. Like all our talents, it is a defense mechanism. It’s merely what happens when an animal has too much time on it’s hands and only other’s of the same species to fear. Consciousness is something all animals posses; they all react to stimuli. We turned this consciousness inwards (self-conscious) when the biggest threat to our survival was no longer the environment, but ourselves…others like us. And the only way to know another who is almost exactly like you, so as to then know their thoughts or motives, is to know yourself…and here we are…still evolving…still striving to overcome ourselves so as to then overcome the other.
Like Dan pointed out, social animals have the highest IQs. This is because when an animal dwells in a pack, the chances that it’ll get killed by the environment decrease, where as the chances it’ll get killed by a pack member increase. So, being that the animal likes being alive, the attention turns inwards. And thus the more the pack grows and the environmental risks decrease, the more the animal is motivated to turn consciously inwards…look at own motives, ways they themselves are persuaded for example, from which then they then can turn this knowledge of self outwards towards the other pack members who are very much like themselves. So, for example, if someone is really paying attention as to how they got convinced to do something, they can then use the same technique they themselves got convinced to convince others. This turned ugly when we thought that everything could be convinced the way we ourselves can…sympathetic magic…animism…modern religion. There isn’t a need for an anomaly, or an irregularity in explaining consciousness.
I understand the need to still feel like we humans are the purpose of the universe, that we are somehow unique, an anomaly, an irregularity, unnatural, et cetera, but come on…face facts…that perspective died with Copernicus.
edit: forgive me. It’s actually dark lord Xenu.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu