Wow, much has transpired here since first I read the original post. The question seems to me to touch on a rather vast area that is as meaningful to look at from the perspective of others as well as our own.

For me the reality of life, for the mentally ill as well as anyone else, includes the constant tension on our actions and words maintained by distortive qualities of emotion and history.

It's easy for me to see that because I cycle between mania and depression, people experience very different versions of my personality. Sure, there is a core, and I'm aware of it, I see it through both ends of my cycle, but no one else can.

Often, in hindsight, I find that what I meant may have been quite distorted by how I felt. Similarly, I can perceive the words and actions of others inaccurately for the same reason. So while person A is perceiving person B, and vice versa, each are perceiving the other both through their own distortions, and the distortions of the other. It's a wonder if anything is ever accurately "perceived" by either, it seems to me.

The big mistake I can make in perception, is to assume that in fact I "percieve" the "one and only possibe" meaning of someone's behavior or expression.

I think that by being confronted by our cycles and such, we tend to become more aware than many, that perception is actually a fairly imprecise thing. Your own embrace of that is expressed in a lovely way by your tenacity and devotion to clarifying, exploring, revisiting, inquiring. To my way of thinking, you can't really do better than that, to take hold of the fact that it isn't straight forward, and do the best you can.

In some way, it seems like your question is one that should burn in everyone's mind. We can't take perception for granted as far as truth is concerned. It's more dynamic than that, isn't it?

This is a great conversation, and I hope this contribution adds to it.

Yer way cool. tc.