Silo, Contributions to Thought

Contributions to Thought

Psychology of the Image

Introduction to Psychology of the Image
When we refer to the “space of representation” some readers may think of a kind of “container” in whose interior are certain “contents” of consciousness. If they further believe that those “contents” are images, and that those images operate as mere copies of perception, we will have a few difficulties to sort out before we are able to come to agreement. Indeed, those who think in this way position themselves within the perspective of a naive psychology—a branch of the natural sciences—that begins without examination from a vision oriented toward the study of psychological phenomena in terms of materiality.
It is useful to clarify from the outset that our position regarding the theme of consciousness and its functions does not share this assumption. For us, the consciousness is intentionality. Clearly, intentionality does not exist in natural phenomena and is totally alien to the studies of the sciences occupied with the materiality of phenomena.
It is our aim in this work to give an account of the image as an active way for the consciousness to be in the world—a way of being that cannot be independent of spatiality, and in which the numerous functions fulfilled by the image depend upon the position that it assumes in this spatiality.
Chapter 1: The Problem of Space in the Study 
of Phenomena of Consciousness
1.1 Background
Through the years there has been no lack of psychologists who, having located the sensation-producing phenomena in an “external” space, have spoken of representations as if they were simply copies of what was perceived. It seems especially odd, then, that when dealing with the facts of representation, they have not concerned themselves with clarifying “where” these phenomena take place. They have described the facts of consciousness, linking them to the passage of time (without explaining that passage), and they have interpreted the sources of these events as determinant causes (located in an external space). No doubt they thought that in this way they had exhausted the primary questions (and answers) that had to be dealt with in order to give a foundation to their science. They believed that the time in which both internal and external phenomena take place is an absolute time. Similarly, they maintained that since space is often distorted in images, dreams, and hallucinations, it can only hold for “external” reality and not for the consciousness.
Various psychologists have concerned themselves with trying to understand whether representation is proper to the soul, the brain, or some other entity. In this context we cannot forget Descartes’s celebrated letter to Christina of Sweden in which, as a way of explaining how thought and will are able to set the human machine into motion, he mentions a “point of union” between the soul and the body.
It is strange to think that it is precisely this philosopher who, while bringing us so much closer to a comprehension of the immediate and indubitable data of thought, nonetheless failed to take note of the theme of the spatiality of representation as a datum independent of the spatiality that the senses obtain from their external sources. Certainly, as the founder of geometrical optics and the creator of analytic geometry, he was very familiar with the problems related to locating phenomena precisely in space. He had all the necessary elements (both his methodological doubt and his concern with the placement of phenomena in space), but failed to take that additional small step that would have allowed him to grasp the idea of the location of representation in various “points” of the space of consciousness.
Almost three hundred years passed before the concept of representation became independent of naive spatial representation and acquired its own meaning. This was thanks to the reevaluation or, more correctly, the re-creation of the idea of intentionality, an idea that had previously been noted by the scholastic philosophers in their studies of Aristotle. The credit for this re-creation belongs principally to Franz Brentano, and numerous references to the problem of intentionality can be found in his work. Though Brentano did not fully develop these notions, his efforts nonetheless laid the foundation for subsequent advances.
It was the work of one of Brentano’s disciples, however, that finally allowed an adequate statement of the problem and so permitted an advance toward solutions that, in my view, will end up revolutionizing not only the discipline of psychology (apparently the appropriate field for the development of these themes) but many others as well.
In Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, Husserl studied the “regional idea of the thing in general” as that self-identical something that is maintained in the midst of the innumerable changes of this or that determined form, and that makes itself known in the corresponding infinite series of noemata, also of a determined form.
The thing is given in its ideal essence of res temporalis in the necessary “form” of time. It is given in its ideal essence of res materialis in its substantial unity, and in its ideal essence of res extensa in the “form” of space. This is so notwithstanding the infinitely varied changes of form or, given a fixed form, the changes of place, which can also be infinitely varied or “mobile.” Thus, Husserl says, we apprehend the idea of space and the ideas included in it. In this way, the problem of the origin of the representation in space is reduced through phenomenological analysis to the different expressions in which space exhibits itself as an intuitive unity.1
Husserl places us in the field of eidetic reduction, and though innumerable insights may be drawn from his works, our interest here is oriented toward themes that are proper to a phenomenological psychology rather than to phenomenological philosophy. Thus, even though we will repeatedly abandon the epoché of the Husserlian method, these transgressions will find their justification in the need to create a more accessible explanation of our point of view. On the other hand, if post-Husserlian psychology has failed to consider the problem that we will refer to as “space of representation,” this indicates nothing more than the need for some of its theses to be reconsidered. In any event, it would be excessive to accuse us of a naive relapse into the world of the “natural mind.”2
Moreover, we are not concerned with “the problem of the origin of the representation of space” but, on the contrary, with the problem of the origin of the “space” that accompanies any representation and in which all representation is given. Since the “space” of representation is not independent of representations, how could we understand such a space other than as the consciousness of the spatiality of any representation? And even if the direction of our study involves observing representation introspectively (and hence, naively) and also introspectively observing the spatiality of the act of observing, still, nothing prevents us from attending to the acts of consciousness that refer to spatiality. This could later be developed into a phenomenological reduction or, without denying the importance of that reduction, it could be postponed, in which case the most that could be said is that this description is incomplete.
Finally, as regards antecedents in the attempt to describe the spatiality of the phenomena of representation, we should note that Binswanger has also made a contribution, though without having reached an understanding of the profound significance of “where” the representations are given.3
1.2 Distinctions Among Sensation, Perception, and Image
Defining sensations in terms of afferent nervous processes that begin in a receptor and travel to the central nervous system, or the like, is something proper to physiology rather than psychology, and such descriptions are not useful for our purposes.
There have also been attempts to define sensation as any experience, out of the total number of perceptual experiences that could exist within a determined modality, as given by the formula (UT-LT)/DT where UT denotes the upper threshold, LT the lower threshold, and DT the differential threshold. This way of presenting things does not allow us to grasp the function of the element that is being studied, and in general the same objection holds for all approaches that share an atomistic background. On the contrary, this approach appeals to a structure (e.g., perception) in order to isolate the “constitutive” elements of this ambit, and from there it then attempts to explain, in a circular way, that same structure.
We can provisionally understand sensation as the register obtained upon detecting a stimulus from the external or internal environment that produces a variation in the tone of operation of the affected sense. But the study of sensation must go further, since we observe that there are sensations that accompany the acts of thinking, remembering, apperception, and so on. In every case there is a variation in the tone of operation of a sense or, as with coenesthesia, a combination of senses, but of course thinking is not “felt” in the same way or mode as an external object. Therefore, the sensation appears as a structuring carried out by the consciousness in its activity of synthesis, but analyzed in a particular way in order to describe its original source, that is, in order to describe the sense from which the impulse originated.
As for perception, there have been various definitions, such as: “Perception is the act of becoming aware of external objects, their qualities or relationships, and unlike memory and other mental processes, perception follows directly from sensory processes.” However, we understand perception as a structuring of sensation that is performed by the consciousness in reference to a sense or combination of senses.
The image has been described as “an element of experience arising from a central point, and possessing all the attributes of sensation.” We prefer to understand the image as a structured and formalized representation of the sensations or perceptions that originate, or have originated, from the external or internal environment. The image, then, is not a “copy” but a synthesis; an intention, not the mere passivity of the consciousness.4
1.3 The Idea of “Consciousness-Being-in-the-World” as a 
Descriptive Touchstone in Facing the Interpretations 
of Naive Psychology
We must revive the idea that all sensations, perceptions, and images are forms of consciousness, and that it would therefore be more correct to speak of “consciousness of sensation,” “consciousness of perceptions,” and “consciousness of the image.” Here we are not taking an apperceptive stance in which there are both psychological phenomena and an awareness of them. Rather, we are saying that it is consciousness itself that modifies its own way of being, or better, that consciousness is nothing but a way of being—being emotional, for example, or being expectant, and so on.
When imagining an object, the consciousness does not stand apart, uncommitted and neutral toward this operation; the consciousness in this situation is a commitment referred to the imagined. Even in the aforementioned case of apperception, we would still have to speak of consciousness in an apperceptive attitude.
It follows that there is no consciousness but consciousness of something, and that this something is referred to a type of world—naive, natural, or phenomenological; “external” or “internal.” Our understanding is not helped, then, by studying the state of fear of danger, for example, in a kind of descriptive schizophrenia in which we take as given that we are investigating a type of emotion that does not implicate other functions of the consciousness. In reality, things are not like this at all.
When we are afraid of a danger, for example, the whole consciousness is in a state of danger. And even though we might recognize other functions (such as perception, reasoning, or memory), it is as if they were now operating saturated by the situation of danger, with everything referred to the danger. In this way, consciousness is a global way of being-in-the-world and a global behavior in front of the world. And if psychological phenomena are spoken of in terms of synthesis, we must know to which synthesis we are referring and what is our starting point in order to understand what separates our concepts from others that also speak of “synthesis,” “globality,” “structure,” and so on.5
At the same time, having established the character of our synthesis, nothing prevents us from going deeper into whatever form of analysis will allow us to better clarify and illustrate our exposition. But these analyses will always be understood in a larger context, and the object or the act under consideration cannot be made independent of that context, nor can it be isolated from its reference to something. The same holds for the psychic “functions,” which are working conjointly according to the way of being of the consciousness at the moment we are considering it.
Is the point, then, that there are sensations, perceptions, and images acting even during full vigil, when, for example, we are dealing with a mathematical problem that occupies our entire interest? Is this so even during the exercise of mathematical abstractions in which we must avoid every type of “distraction”? Indeed, we are saying that such abstractions would not be possible if these mathematicians did not have sensory registers of their mental activity, or if they did not perceive the temporal succession of their thought processes, or if they did not imagine thanks to mathematical signs or symbols (symbols defined by convention and later memorized). Finally, if our mathematizing subjects wish to work with meanings, they must recognize that these are not independent of the expressions that are formally presented to them through their sight or their representation.
But we go even further than that in maintaining that other functions are working simultaneously, or in saying that the state of vigil, in which these operations are being carried out, is not isolated from other levels of activity of the consciousness, is not isolated from other types of operations that are more fully expressed in semi-sleep or sleep. And it is this simultaneity of work of distinct levels that allows us to speak of “intuitions,” “inspirations,” or “unexpected solutions” that at times suddenly burst into logical discourse, adding their own schemas, in this case within the context of doing mathematics. Scientific literature is filled with examples of problems whose solutions have appeared in activities far removed from those of logical discourse, illustrating precisely the involvement of the whole consciousness in the search for solutions to such problems.
We do not support this position on the basis of neurophysiological schemes that uphold these claims on the basis of the activity registered by an electroencephalograph. Nor do we support it by appealing to the action of some supposed “subconscious,” “unconscious” or any other epochal myth based on dubiously formulated scientific premises. We base our approach on a psychology of the consciousness that acknowledges diverse levels of work and operations of varying importance in each psychic phenomenon, all of which are always integrated in the action of a global consciousness.
1.4 The Internal Register Through Which the Image 
Is Given in Some “Place”
Pressing the keys on the keyboard I have in front of me causes the appearance of graphic characters that I can see on the monitor connected to it. The movements of my fingers are associated with particular letters, and automatically, following my thoughts, the phrases and sentences flow out. Now, suppose that I close my eyes and stop thinking about the previous discussion in order to concentrate on the image of the keyboard. In some way I have the keyboard “right in front of me,” represented by a visual image that is almost as if copied from the perception I was experiencing before I closed my eyes.
Opening my eyes, I get up from my chair and take a few steps across the room. Again I close my eyes, and upon remembering the keyboard, I imagine it somewhere behind me. If I wanted to observe the image exactly as the keyboard presented itself to my perception, I would have to place it in a position “in front of my eyes.” To do that, I must either mentally turn my body around or “move” the machine through the “external space” until it is located in front of me. Now the machine is “in front of my eyes,” but this produces a spatial dislocation, because if I open my eyes I will see a window in front of me. In this way, it becomes evident that the location of the object in the representation is placed in a “space” that may not coincide with the space in which the original perception was given.
Furthermore, I can go on to imagine the keyboard located in the window in front of me, or I can imagine the whole ensemble closer to or farther away from me. I can even expand or shrink the size of the whole scene or some of its components. I can distort these bodies, and finally, I can even change their colors.
But I also discover some impossibilities. I cannot, for example, imagine those objects without color, no matter how hard I try to make them “transparent,” since it is precisely color or “shade” that will define the edges or differences of the transparency. Clearly, I am confirming that extension and color are not independent contents, and hence I cannot imagine color without extension. It is precisely this point that makes me reflect that if I am unable to represent color without extension, then the extension of the representation also denotes the “spatiality” in which the represented object is placed. It is this spatiality that interests us. Chapter 2: Location of What Is Represented 
in the Spatiality of Representation
2.1 Different Types of Perception and Representation
Psychologists through the ages have made extensive lists dealing with perceptions and sensations, and today, with the discovery of new neuroreceptors, they have begun to talk about thermoceptors and baroceptors, as well as internal detectors of acidity, alkalinity, and so forth.
To the sensations corresponding to the external senses we will add those that correspond to diffuse senses such as the kinesthetic (movement and corporal posture) and coenesthetic (register of temperature, pain, and so on—that is, the register of the intrabody in general) which, even when explained in terms of an internal tactile sense, cannot be reduced to that.
For our purposes what has been noted above should suffice, without claiming that this in any way exhausts the possible registers that correspond to the external and internal senses or the multiple perceptual combinations possible between them.
It is important, then, to establish a parallel between representations and perceptions that are generically classified as “internal” or “external.” It is unfortunate that the term “representation” has so frequently been limited to visual images.6 Moreover, spatiality seems almost always to be referred to the visual, even though auditory perceptions and representations also reveal the sources of stimuli localized in some “place.” This is also the case with touch, taste, smell, and, of course, with those senses referred to the position of the body and the phenomena of the intrabody.7
2.2 The Interaction of Images Referred to 
Different Perceptual Sources
In the earlier example of automatism we were dealing with the connection between the flow of words and the movement of the fingers, which when striking the keys triggered graphic characters on the monitor. This clearly illustrates a case where precise spatial positions are associated with kinesthetic registers. If spatiality did not exist for these registers, such an association would be impossible. But it is also interesting to verify how thought in the form of words is translated into the movement of the fingers, linked to particular positions of the keys. Moreover, such “translation” is quite common, and frequently occurs with representations based on perceptions originating in different senses.
For example, all we need to do is close our eyes and listen to different sounds in order to observe that our eyes tend to move in the direction of the auditory perception. Moreover, if we imagine a piece of music, we can observe how our mechanisms of vocalization tend to adapt, especially to high- and low-pitched sounds. This phenomenon of “subvocalization” is independent of whether the piece of music has been imagined as sung or hummed, or whether the representation involves an entire symphony orchestra. The reference to the representation of high-pitched sounds as “high” and low-pitched sounds as “low” is the telltale sign that confirms the existence—in association with the sounds—of spatiality and positioning in the system of vocalization.
There are also other interactions between images that correspond to different senses. In relation to this question, it could be that ordinary language offers greater insight than scholarly treatises. Consider such cases as “sweet” love and the “bitter” taste of defeat, “hard” words, “gloomy” thoughts, “great” men, the “fire” of desire, and “sharp” minds.
In light of all this, it should not seem strange that many of the allegorizations that occur in dreams, folklore, myths, religions, and even daily reverie are based on translations from one sense to another, and hence from one system of images to another. So for example, a raging fire may appear in a dream from which the subject awakens with a bad case of heartburn; or the subject, having dreamed of being mired in quicksand, may wake to find his legs entangled in the sheets. What seems most appropriate, then, in dealing with these phenomena is to base our interpretations on an exhaustive investigation of the immediately given rather than adding new myths that claim to interpret these dramatizations.
2.3 Representation: Capacity for Transformation
In our example we saw how the representation of the keyboard could be altered in its color, shape, size, position, perspective, and so on. It is also clear that we could completely “recreate” the object in question, modifying it until it became unrecognizable. If, finally, our keyboard becomes a rock (as the prince becomes a frog), even if all the characteristics in our new image are those of a rock, for us that rock will remain “the transformed keyboard.” Such recognition is possible thanks to the memories and the history that we keep alive in our new representation. This new image will involve a structuring that is no longer simply visual. And it is precisely this structuring in which the image is given that allows us to establish memories, climates, and affective tones related to the object in question, even when it has disappeared or been drastically modified. Conversely, we can observe that the modification of the general structure will produce variations in the image (when recalled or superimposed on the perception).8
We find ourselves, then, in a world in which the perception seems to inform us of its variations, while the image, in stimulating our memory, launches us to reinterpret and modify the data coming from that world. Accordingly, to every perception there is a corresponding representation that unfailingly modifies the “data” of “reality.” In other words, the structure perception-image is a behavior of the consciousness in the world, whose meaning is the transformation of this world.9
2.4 Recognition and Non-recognition of the Perceived
Looking at the keyboard, I am able to recognize it thanks to the representations that accompany my perceptions of that object. If, when I again see the keyboard, it has changed for any reason, I will experience a lack of correspondence with those representations. As a result, I might experience any of a gamut of mental phenomena. These could range from disagreeable surprise to a total lack of recognition in which the object would appear as “another” object, and not the one I expected to find. This lack of coincidence reveals the discrepancies between the new perceptions and the old images. In that moment, I compare the differences between the keyboard I remember and the one now present to me.
Non-recognition of a new object that presents itself is in fact the re-cognition of the absence of an image corresponding to this new object. So it is that quite often I try to accommodate the new perception through “as if” interpretations in relation to something familiar.10
We have seen that the image has the ability to free the object from the context in which it was perceived. The image has sufficient plasticity to modify itself and dislocate its references. In fact, the reaccommodation of the image to the new perception does not present great difficulties (difficulties that become evident in the phenomena that accompany the image, as is the case with the emotional phenomena and the corporal tone that accompany the representation). Therefore, the image can move—transforming itself—through the different times and spaces of consciousness. In this present moment of consciousness I can retain the past image of this object, which has been modified, or extend it toward other possible modifications of “what it might become” or toward other possible ways of being.
2.5 Image of the Perception and Perception of the Image
To every perception corresponds an image, and this fact is given as a structure. We can also note that neither affect nor corporal tone can be separated from the globality of the consciousness. Earlier we mentioned a case in which we tried to follow perceptions and translated images, as in adaptations of the vocal apparatus or the movement of the eyeballs when seeking, for example, the source of a sound. Following this kind of description is easier if we locate ourselves in a single band of perception-representation-motricity.
So it is, then, that if I face the keyboard and close my eyes, I can still, with relative accuracy, extend my fingers and hit the correct keys. This is because my fingers follow images that operate in this case, “delineating” my movements. If, however, I displace the image toward the left in my space of representation, my fingers will follow the delineation and will no longer coincide with the external keyboard. If I then “internalize” the image toward the center of the space of representation, placing the image of the keyboard “inside my head,” for example, the movement of my fingers will tend to be inhibited. Conversely, if I “externalize” the image, placing it “several paces in front of me,” I will experience that not only my fingers but also entire areas of my body will tend in that direction.
If the perceptions of the “external” world correspond to “externalized” images (“outside” the coenesthetic-tactile register of the head, “inside” of whose boundary is the “look” of the observer), the perception of the “internal” world will have corresponding “internalized” representations (“inside” the limits of the tactile-coenesthetic register, which in turn is “looked on” also from “within” this boundary but displaced from its central position, which is now occupied by that which is “seen”). This shows a certain “externality” of the look that observes or experiences any given scene. Taking this to the extreme, I can observe the “look” itself, in which case the act of observation becomes external with respect to the “look” as an object, which now occupies the central position. This “perspective” shows that besides the “spatiality” of that which is represented as a non-independent content (following Husserl), there is a “spatiality” in the structure object-look. It could be said that in reality this is not a “perspective” in the internal spatial sense but rather involves acts of consciousness that when retained appear continuous, producing the illusion of perspective. But even as temporal retentions they cannot escape, as far as representation, from becoming non-independent contents, and consequently subject to spatiality, whether they are simply represented objects or the structure object-look.
Some psychologists have noted this “look” that is referred to the representation but have mistaken it for the “I” or the “attentional focus.” No doubt such confusion is due to a lack of understanding of the distinction between acts and objects of consciousness, and also of course to prejudices with respect to the activity of representation.11
Therefore, when I am faced with imminent danger, such as a tiger leaping toward the bars of the cage in front of me, my representations will correspond to the object, which, moreover, I recognize as dangerous.
The images that correspond to the recognition of external “danger” are structured with previous perceptions (and therefore, representations) of the intrabody. These gain special intensity in the case of “consciousness of danger,” modifying the perspective from which the object is observed and producing the register of a “shortening of space” between the danger and myself. In this way, the action of the images in various locations in the space of representation clearly modifies conduct in the world (as we have seen with respect to the “delineating” images).
In other words: Danger magnifies the perceptions and the corresponding images of one’s own body, but that structure is directly referred to the perception-image of that which is dangerous (external to the body), through which the contamination, the “invasion” of the body by the dangerous is assured. My whole consciousness is, in this case, consciousness-in-danger, dominated by the dangerous—without limits, without distance, without external “space,” since I feel the danger within me, for-me, in the “interior” of the space of representation, within the boundary of the tactile-coenesthetic register of my head and skin. My most immediate, “natural” response is to flee from the danger, to flee from my endangered self (moving delineating images in my space of representation in the direction opposite to the danger and toward the “outside” of my body). If, through a powerful effort of self-reflection, I decided to remain face to face with the danger, I would have to do this “fighting with myself.” I would have to reject the danger from within and with a new perspective take mental distance from the compulsion to flee from the danger. I would have to modify the placement of the images in the depths of the space of representation, and hence the perception I have of them.
Chapter 3: Configuration of the 
Space of Representation
3.1 Variations of the Space of Representation 
in Relation to the Levels of Consciousness
It is a commonplace that during sleep the consciousness abandons its everyday interests. It also pays less attention to stimuli originating from the external senses, responding to them only when the impulses pass a certain threshold or touch on a “sensitive point.”
The profusion of images during dreaming sleep reveals the vast number of correlative perceptions occurring. It is clear, at the same time, that external stimuli are not only attenuated but also transformed so as to facilitate the conservation of that level of consciousness.12
Certainly, the way of being of the consciousness in sleep is not a way of not being in the world. Rather, it is a particular way of being and acting in the world, even when the activity is directed toward the internal world. Hence, if during sleep with dreams the images help to conserve that level by transforming external perceptions, they are also working in conjunction with deep tensions and relaxations and with the energetic economy of the intrabody. The same thing takes place with the images in our “daydreams,” and it is precisely in this intermediary level that we gain access to the dramatizations proper to the impulses that are being translated from one sense to another.
In vigil, images not only contribute to the recognition of perceptions but also tend to direct the activity of the body toward the external world. Also, we necessarily have an internal register of these images, through which they influence the behavior of the intrabody.13 However, these phenomena are perceptible only in a secondary way, and then only when the interest is directed toward the muscular tonicity and motor activity. Thus, the situation can undergo rapid change when the consciousness configures itself “emotionally” and the register of the inner body is amplified, while at the same time the images continue to act upon the external world. On other occasions the images may, as a “tactical adaptation of the body,” inhibit all activity. These adaptations may subsequently be judged to have been correct or mistaken, but in any case there can be no doubt that they are behavioral adaptations in facing the world.
As we have already seen, images referred to internal and external space must be located at different depths of the space of representation in order to carry out their functions. During sleep I am able to see images as if I were observing them from a point located inside the scene itself (as if I were in the scene and looked at things from “me,” without seeing myself from “outside”). From this perspective I believe not that I am seeing “images” but rather perceptual reality itself. This occurs because, unlike when I close my eyes in vigil, I do not have a register of the boundary within which the images appear, and so I believe that I am, with open eyes, seeing what is happening “outside myself.”
However, in this case the delineating images do not mobilize muscle tonicity because, even though I believe I am perceiving “external” space, in reality the image is located in the space of representation. So while my eyes follow the movements of the images, my bodily movements are attenuated in the same way that perceptions originating through external senses are attenuated and translated. This is similar to the case of hallucination, except that, as we will see, in hallucinations the register of the tactile-coenesthetic boundary has for some reason disappeared, whereas in the previously discussed case of sleep, it is not that such boundaries have disappeared but simply that they cannot exist.
Images placed in this way surely delineate their action toward the intrabody, utilizing various transformations and dramatizations that also allow us to restructure situations already lived—updating our memories, and certainly decomposing and recomposing emotions that were originally structured along with the image. Paradoxical sleep (and in some ways “reverie”) fulfills important functions, among which the transference of affective climates to transformed images should not be overlooked.14
There exists at least one other case of placement in the oneiric scene: the case in which I see myself “from outside,” that is, I see the scene in which I am included and carry out actions, but from a point of observation external to the scene. This case is similar to the one in vigil in which I see myself “from outside” (as happens when, in a theatrical performance or otherwise feigning, I represent or portray a certain attitude). The difference is, however, that when vigilic I have an apperception of myself (I regulate, control, and modify my activity), and when in sleep I “believe” in the scene as it presents itself, because in this situation my self-criticism is reduced and the direction of the dream sequence seems to be outside my control.
3.2 Variations of the Space of Representation in 
States of Altered Consciousness
In order to address the phenomena of altered states of consciousness, we must leave aside the traditionally established differences between illusion and hallucination. Let us take as a reference those images that, because of their characteristics, are often taken for perceptions from the external world. Of course, there is more to an “altered state” than this; nonetheless, that is the aspect that concerns us here. It can occur that a person in vigil will “project” images, mistaking them for real perceptions from the external world. In this case, the person will believe in these images in the same way as the dreaming person mentioned earlier, in which the dreamer was unable to distinguish between internal and external spaces because the tactile-coenesthetic boundary of the head and eyes could not be included in the system of representation. Moreover, both the scene and the subject’s look are located in the interior of the space of representation, but without any notion of “interiority.”
Accordingly, if someone in vigil loses the notion of “interiority,” it is because the register that divides the internal from the external has somehow disappeared. Nonetheless, images projected “outside” retain their delineating power, launching motor activity toward the world. Subjects in this situation would find themselves in a peculiar state of “waking dream,” of active semi-sleep, in which their behavior in the external world has lost all efficiency in regard to objects. This can reach a point where these subjects end up talking with people who are not there or acting inappropriately in other ways.
Such situations are frequently seen in cases of fever, hypnosis, and sleepwalking. Occasionally they may also occur at the moment of entering or leaving sleep. Certainly, they can also be observed in some cases of intoxication, as well as in particular kinds of mental disturbances. The phenomena that allow this projection of images correspond to a kind of tactile-coenesthetic “anesthesia” in which images lose their “boundaries” when the sensation that serves as the reference dividing “external” and “internal” space is lacking.
There are various sensory deprivation experiments in which the “limits” of the body seem to disappear and subjects experience variations in the dimensions of different parts of their bodies. Hallucinations are also common in those situations in which a subject, suspended in complete silence and total darkness, floats in a saturated saline solution that is maintained at skin temperature. Then, for example, gigantic butterflies may seem to flap their wings in front of the subject’s open eyes. The subject may later recognize this image as “originating” in the functioning (or malfunctioning) of his or her lungs.
There are a number of questions that might follow from this example. Why, for instance, is the pulmonary register translated and projected as “butterflies” in this case? Why do other subjects in the same situation not experience hallucinations at all? Why does a third group project rising hot-air balloons, for example, rather than butterflies? It is clear that the allegories that correspond to the impulses of the intrabody cannot be separated from the personal memory, which is also a system of representation. We can see this in the case of ancient forms of sensory deprivation (for example, the solitary caves sought out by mystics of an earlier age). In this way people obtained adequate results, in terms of hypnogogic translations and projections, especially when combined with other practices that amplify the registers of the intrabody such as fasting, prayer, and sleep deprivation. The world’s religious literature abounds with references to such phenomena, with accounts of both the procedures used and the outcomes obtained. It can clearly be seen that, apart from the particular visions of each experimenter, there are other images that correspond to the representations of the subject’s particular religious culture.
The same phenomena occasionally occur in proximity to death. In these situations we find projections that correspond specifically to each subject, as well as others related to elements of the culture and era in which the subject lives. Even in the laboratory, hypnogogic images with both personal and cultural substrata can often be provoked with experiments using the Meduna mixture of gases, as well as through hyperventilation, carotid and ocular pressure, stroboscopic lights, and so forth.
What is important for us, however, is the conformation of those images, as well as the location of the “look” and “scene” in different depths and levels of the space of representation. It is in this regard that the reports from individuals subjected to conditions of sensory deprivation are often so interesting. Even in cases where there are no hallucinations, the reports nearly always agree on a number of points. Besides feeling “disoriented” about the position of their limbs and head, subjects often speak about the difficulty of knowing exactly whether their eyes were open or closed, and of the impossibility of perceiving the boundary between their bodies and the space around them.15
From all of this we are led to certain conclusions. Certainly among them would be the observation that activity toward the external world is impeded with the internalization of the motor representation. That is, as in the example of the keyboard located “inside” the head rather than “in front of” the eyes, the location of the image more “internally” than is required in order to delineate action blocks the body’s movement toward the external world.16
With respect to the anesthesia mentioned earlier, the loss of the sensation of the “boundary” between internal and external space prevents the correct placement of the image; hence, hallucinations can be produced when these images are externalized. On the other hand, in semi-sleep (daydreams and paradoxical sleep), the internalization of images acts upon the intrabody. And in the situation of “emotional consciousness,” numerous images tend to act upon the intrabody.
3.3 The Nature of the Space of Representation
We have not been speaking of a space of representation per se or of a quasi-mental space. Rather, we have said that representation as such cannot be independent of spatiality, though we are not thereby maintaining that representation occupies space. It is the form of spatial representation that concerns us here. So it is that when we speak of a “space of representation” rather than simply of representation itself, it is because we are considering the ensemble of perceptions and (non-visual) images that provide the registers (the corporal tone, as well as that of the consciousness) on the basis of which I recognize myself as “me.” That is, I recognize myself as a continuum despite the flow and changes that I experience. So the space of representation is not such because it is an empty container to be filled with phenomena of consciousness, but rather because its nature is representation, and when particular images occur, the consciousness cannot present them other than under the form of extension. Thus, we might also have emphasized the material aspect of what is being represented without thereby speaking of its substantiality in the same sense as would physics or chemistry; rather, we would be referring to the hyletic data, that is, to the material data and not to materiality itself.
We are left, however, with a difficulty. Of course, no one would think that the consciousness has color or that it is a colored container simply because visual representations are presented as colored. So when we say that the space of representation possesses different levels and depths, is it because we are speaking of a three-dimensional space with volume? Or is it that the perceptual-representational structure of my coenesthesia is presented as having volume? Undoubtedly the latter is the case, and it is thanks to this that my representations may appear above or below, to the left or the right, toward the front or back, and that my “look” may also have a particular perspective toward the image.
3.4 Copresence, Horizon, and Landscape 
in the System of Representation
We can consider the space of representation the “scene” in which the representation, excluding the “look,” is given. Clearly, such a scene involves a structure of images that draws on numerous perceptual sources and previously perceived images.
For each structure of representation that appears in the scene there exist innumerable alternatives that are not completely unfolded but rather act copresently. Of course, here we are not speaking of “manifest” and “latent” contents or the “associative pathways” that can lead the image in one direction or another. For example, consider the theme of linguistic expressions and meanings. While trying to decide what to say, I can observe that there are numerous alternatives to choose among. I make these choices not by following a lineal associative direction, but rather in relation to meanings. These meanings are related, in turn, to the overall meaning of what I am going to say. In this way we can understand whatever is said as a meaning expressed in a particular region of objects. It is clear that I could extend myself to another region of objects that is non-homogenous with the overall meaning that I wish to transmit. However, I refrain from doing this precisely so as not to destroy the transmission of the overall meaning. What this makes clear is that there are other regions of objects copresent in my discourse, and that I could let myself be taken by aimless “free association” within the chosen region. But even in this case I can see that such associations correspond to other regions, to other meaningful totalities.
In this example of language, my discourse is developed in a region of meanings and expressions. It is structured within the limits set by a “horizon” and separated from other regions, which in turn are structured by other objects or by other relations between objects.
In this way the notion of a scene in which the images are given corresponds approximately to the idea of a region limited by a horizon proper to the system of representation that is acting. We can look at it in this way: When I represent the keyboard, the ambit and the objects that surround it in the region, which in this case I could call the “room,” are acting copresently. Hence, I discover that not only are alternatives of a material type acting (adjacent objects within the ambit), but that those alternatives are multiplied into different temporal and substantial regions, and this grouping into regions does not correspond to the form “all objects belonging to the class.…”
I constitute the world in which I perceive and carry out my daily routine, not only through representations that allow me to recognize and act but also through copresent systems of representation. The structuring that I make in the world I call a “landscape,” and I can verify that the perception of the world is always a recognition and interpretation of a reality according to my landscape. This world, which I take to be reality, is my own biography in action, and the action of transformation that I carry out in the world is my own transformation. When I speak about my internal world I am also speaking about the interpretation that I make of it and the transformation that I carry out in it.
The distinctions that we have made until now between “internal” and “external” space, based on the register of boundaries set by the tactile-coenesthetic perceptions, cannot be maintained when we speak about this globality of the consciousness in the world, for which the world is its “landscape” and the I its “look.” This mode of consciousness-being-in-the-world is basically a mode of action in perspective, whose immediate spatial reference is the body itself, not simply the intrabody. But the body, while being an object of the world, is also an object of the landscape and an object of transformation, and in this way it ends up becoming a prosthesis of human intentionality.
If images allow recognition and action, then according to the structure of the landscape and the needs of individuals and peoples (or according to what they consider their needs to be), they will, in the same way, tend to transform the world.
Notes to Psychology of the Image
1 “What in our innocence of phenomenological niceties we take for mere facts: that a spatial thing always appears to ‘us humans’ in a certain ‘orientation,’ oriented, for instance, in the visual field of view as above and below, right and left, near and far; that we can see a thing only at a certain ‘depth’ or ‘distance’; that all the changing distances at which it can be seen are related to a center of all depth-orientations ‘localized’ by us in the head, invisible though familiar to us as an ideal limiting point—all these alleged facts (Faktizitaten), contingencies of spatial perception which are foreign to the ‘true,’ ‘objective’ space, reveal themselves down to the most trivial empirical subdivisions (Besonderungen) as essential necessities. Thus we see that not only for us human beings, but also for God—as the ideal representative of absolute knowledge—whatever has the character of a spatial thing is intuitable only through appearances, wherein it is given, and indeed must be given, as changing ‘perspectively’ in varied yet determined ways, and thereby presented in changing ‘orientations.’
“We must now seek not only to establish this as a general thesis, but also to follow it up into all its particular formations. The problem of the ‘origin of the presentation of space,’ the deepest phenomenological meaning whereof has never yet been grasped, reduces itself to the phenomenological analysis of the essential nature of all the noematic (and noetic) phenomena, wherein space exhibits itself intuitionally and as the unity of appearances, and the descriptive modes of such exhibiting ‘constitutes’ the spatial.” Ideas General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, E. Husserl (New York: Collier, 1975, Section 150).
2 In section 6 of the Epilogue to Ideas Husserl says: “For those who live in the habits of thought prevailing in the science of nature it seems to quite obvious that purely psychic being or psychic life, is to be considered a course of events similar to natural ones, occurring in the quasi-space of consciousness. Evidently and in principle, it makes no difference in this regard whether one lets the psychic data be blown into aggregates “atomistically,” like shifting heaps of sand, even though in conformity with empirical laws, or whether they are considered parts of wholes which, by necessity, either empirical or a priori, can behave individually only as such parts within a whole—at the highest level perhaps in the whole that is consciousness in its totality, which is bound to a fixed form of wholeness. In other words, atomistic psychology, as well as Gestalt psychology, both retain the sense and the principle of psychological “naturalism” (as we have defined it above) or “sensualism,” as it can also be named if we recall the use of the term “inner sense.” Clearly, even Brentano’s psychology of intentionality remains tied to this traditional naturalism, although it has brought about a reformation by introducing into psychology the descriptive concept of intentionality as a universal and fundamental one”. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy Second Book (Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution), E. Husserl, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989, Epilogue, section 6 pg. 423).
3 Grundformen und Erkenntinis menslichen Daseins, L. Binswanger (Zurich: Niehans, 1953); Ausgewahlte Vortrage und Aufsatze (Francke Berna, 1955). See “La Psychanlyse existentiale de Ludwig Binswanger,” Henri Niel, Critique (October 1957). Quoted in Histoire de la Psychologie, Fernand Lucien Mueller (Paris: Payot, 1976).
4 This discussion began long ago. Sartre, in his critical study on the various conceptions of imagination, says: “Associationism lived on among certain tardy partisans of the theory of cerebral localization, and was latent among a host of writers who were unable to dispose of it despite every effort. The Cartesian doctrine of pure thought that is capable of replacing the image on the very terrain of imagination returned to favor through Buhler. A large number of psychologists finally maintained with R. P. Peillaube the compromise theory of Leibniz. Experimentalists such as Binet and the Wurzburg psychologists claimed to have noted the existence of imageless thoughts. Other psychologists no less devoted to fact, such as Titchener and Ribot, denied the existence and even the possibility of such thoughts. Matters had not advanced one step beyond the time of the publication of Leibniz’s reply to Locke in the New Essays.
“For the point of departure had not changed. In the first place, the old conception of images had been retained. In a more subtle form, no doubt. Experiments such as those of Spaier revealed, to be sure, a sort of life where, thirty years earlier, only static elements had been seen. Images have their dawn and their dusk, and change form under the gaze of consciousness. The investigations of Philippe doubtless revealed a progressive schematization of images in the unconscious. Generic images were admitted to exist, the work of Messer revealing a host of indeterminate representations in consciousness, and Berkeleyan particularism was abandoned. With Bergson, Revault d’Allonnnes, Betz and others, the old notion of schemata came back into fashion. But there was no surrender of principle. The image was an independent psychic content capable of assisting thought but also subject to its own laws. And although a biological dynamism replaced the traditional mechanistic conception the essence of the image continued nonetheless to be passivity.” Imagination: A Psychological Critique, J.P. Sartre, trans. Forrest Williams (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962, pp. 75–76).
5 “Every psychic fact is a synthesis. Every psychic fact is a form, and has a structure. This is common ground for all contemporary psychologists, and is completely in accord with the data of reflection. Unfortunately, these contentions have their origin in a priori ideas. In agreement with the data of inner sense, they do not originate there, in inner experience. Psychologists have thus resembled in their undertakings those mathematicians who wanted to retrieve the continuum by means of discontinuous elements. Psychic synthesis was to be retrieved by starting from elements furnished by a priori analysis of certain logical-metaphysical concepts. The image was one of those elements, and reveals, in our opinion, the most decisive rout experienced by synthetic psychology. The attempt was made to soften the image, to refine it, to render it as fluid and as transparent as possible, so that it would not prevent syntheses from taking place. And when certain writers realized that even thus disguised, images were bound to shatter the continuity of the psychic stream, they rejected images entirely, as pure Scholastic entities. But they failed to realize that their criticism had to do with a certain conception of images, not images themselves. All the trouble lay in having come to images with the idea of synthesis, instead of deriving a certain conception of synthesis from reflection upon images. The problem raised was the following one: How can the existence of images be reconciled with the requirements of synthesis? They failed to realize that an atomistic conception of images was already contained in the very manner of formulating the problem. There is no avoiding the straightforward answer that so long as images are inert psychic contents, there is no conceivable way to reconcile them with the requirements of synthesis. An image can only enter into consciousness, if it is itself a synthesis, not an element. There are not, and never could be, images in consciousness. Rather, an image is a certain type of consciousness. An image is an act, not some thing. An image is a consciousness of some thing.” Imagination: A Psychological Critique, Sartre, p. 146.
6 This is probably the source of confusion that has led thinkers such as Bergson to affirm: “An image may be without being perceived; it may be present without being represented.”
7 By 1943, it had been observed in laboratories that some individuals have a tendency to favor auditory, tactile, or coenesthetic images over visual ones. This led G. Walter in 1967 to formulate a classification of imaginative types according to their predominant sense. Independently of his claims, the idea gained ground among psychologists that recognition of one’s own body in space or the memory of an object were quite often not based on visual images. Moreover, they began to consider the case of perfectly normal subjects who described their “blindness” as regards visual representations. From this point on it could no longer be maintained that visual images should be considered the nucleus of the system of representation, relegating other imaginative forms to the dustbin of “eidetic disintegration” or the field of literature, where “idiots” and “morons” say things like: “I couldn’t see it, but my hands saw it, and I could hear it getting night, and my hands saw the slipper but I couldn’t see myself, but my hands could see the slipper, and I squatted there, hearing it getting dark.” The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (New York: Vintage, 1954, pp. 88–89).
8 Recall the example of the modification of space that Sartre gives in The Emotions: Outline of a Theory. There he speaks of a ferocious animal that suddenly leaps toward us threateningly. In this situation, even though the animal is caged we are startled, and it is as if the distance that separates us had disappeared. The same phenomena are also described by the character Kolnai in Nausea. He describes the sensation of revulsion as a defense when faced with the advance of the warm, viscous, and vitally diffuse, which gets closer until it “sticks” to the observer. For him, the reflex of vomiting in front of the “disgusting” is a rejection, a visceral expulsion of a sensation that has been “introduced” into his body. We think that in both these cases representation plays a central role, being superimposed on the perception and modifying it. We can see this in the case of the “dangers” that are ignored by a child but become matters of importance for the adult who has previously suffered mishaps. In the second case the rejection of the “disgusting” is affected by memories associated with the object, or particular aspects of the object. How else could we explain that one and the same food can be treated as a gastronomic delicacy by a particular group of people and as unacceptable or even repugnant by another? Furthermore, how would we understand the phobias or “unjustified” fears someone might have about an object that to other eyes seems harmless? Since perceptions do not differ so drastically among normal subjects, the differences must be in the image, or rather in the structuring of the image.
9 It should be understood that when we speak of the “world” we are referring as much to the so-called “internal” as to the so-called “external” world. It is also clear that this dichotomy is accepted because in this exposition we are placing ourselves in the naive or habitual position. It is useful to recall the comments in Chapter 1, Paragraph 1 regarding falling once again naively into the world of the “natural psyche.”
10 As if… this object were similar to another one that I am familiar with; as if something had happened to this object that I know; as if it were missing some characteristics to become that other already known object, etc.
11 We use the word “look” with a meaning that extends beyond the visual. Perhaps it would be more correct to speak of a “point of observation.” Thus, when we say “look,” we could refer to a non-visual register (kinesthetic, for example) that still involves a representation.
12 Even though the attitude of abandoning daily interests is rejected in the vigilic state, the tendency toward preserving the level also occurs there. Vigil and sleep tend to run through their respective cycles, replacing each other in a more or less foreseeable sequence, very different from the case of daydreaming and paradoxical sleep (sleep with visual images), which at times erupt into these levels. Perhaps this situation, which we could call semi-sleep, corresponds to reaccommodations or “distancings” that allow the level to be preserved.
13 How can we explain somatization without understanding the capacity that internal images possess to modify the body? An understanding of this phenomenon should contribute to the development of a psychosomatic medicine, in which the body and its functions (or dysfunctions) could be globally reinterpreted in the context of intentionality. From this perspective, the human body would be seen as a prosthesis of the consciousness in its activity toward the world.
14 However, investigating these topics would take us far from our central theme. A complete theory of the consciousness (which is not what we are attempting here) will need to take all these phenomena into account.
15 Doubtless the experiences described above deserve clever neurophysiological explanations, but these would not be related to our theme, nor could they resolve the questions we are considering.
16 After suffering a powerful fright or a serious conflict, subjects can observe that their limbs do not respond to their will; this paralysis may last only a brief moment or it may persist. Such cases as the sudden loss of speech as a consequence of emotional shock correspond to the same range of phenomena.