Can meditation strengthen the sense of self? When I practice mindfulness meditation I can sometimes become acutely aware of my sense of self. It seems to go from a dull background awareness of self to a feeling that the sense of self is very pervasive and almost invasive into all aspects of experience. Naively I would expect that meditation would have the opposite affect and weaken the sense of self. In fairness sometimes it does but sometimes it appears to have this opposite effect. 

Is that a documented result of meditation. Is there advice out there from established teachers (of any schools) about working with this? Is it just me? Has anyone got advice based on their own experience?
Just do what you're doing. When you notice your self, don't fight it. Your sense of self is there for a purpose. The purpose is to find out the cause. Once the cause of self is found, the cause is removed. When the cause is removed, self ceases.

When meditation is done gently, spontaneously, peacefully, one becomes absorbed in meditation. When one is absorbed in meditation, thinking ceases. When thinking ceases, self ceases.