Perhaps such a "higher consciousness" being is by definition more aware of itself than we are of ourselves. Maybe an octopus or dolphin has higher consciousness that we can't comprehend or notice, because we're testing for human-ness rather than consciousness.
"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons." -- Douglas Adams.
