Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
I had a few authors spring to mind, but when I thought about them some more, I wasn't sure they fit into the "Perception" mould originally asked for. I'm not sure about any of the authors mentioned after either. Are we talking about strictly physical perception via the five senses, or are we also talking about conscious or unconscious apprehension, as well? In "Hunger", the perceptions were hallucinations. Do they still count?
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In HUNGER, the protagonist often takes HIS OWN perceptions for mere hallucination...but often, through acting on the messages he so much distrusts himself, believing them to be just illusion caused by hunger, he actually succeeds in advancing his own survival.
It is as though the hunger has also opened the door to the unconscious mind, with, as you say, its extra-physical senses.
In Robert Bly's introduction to his own 1967 translation of HUNGER, he writes:
"One interesting faith runs through all of HUNGER - a curious, almost superstitious faith in the unconscious. The main character listens a great deal 'with his antennae'. He senses the woman in black under the street lamp in linked to him even before he talks to her. He is sure the word, 'Cisler' is a sign to him from 'higher powers'. He obeys his impulses instantly, showing an unusually open avenue between his unconscious and his consciousness, no matter if it is an impulse to bite his own finger (which pulls him out a serious daze), or the impulse to hire a taxi and drive off to a non-existent address, or the impulse to speak to strangers. He takes great delight in obeying these impulses."
This idea of "listening with the antennae" would seem to me indistinguishable from, inseparable from, any idea of perception.
You could also argue it to be the basis of clear perception.