Mental imagery itself requires a nihilating withdrawal of consciousness

Evidence

But that is not true: to affirm that the consciousness (of) belief is consciousness (of) belief is to dissociate consciousness from belief, to suppress the parenthesis, and to make belief an object for consciousness; it is to launch abruptly on to the plane of reflectivity. … It is on the reflective level only that we can attempt an , a putting between parentheses, only there that we can refuse what Husserl calls the mitmachen. The consciousness (of) belief, while irreparably altering belief, does not distinguish itself from belief; it exists in order to perform the act of faith. Thus we are obliged to admit that the consciousness (of) belief is belief. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 330 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The reflective nihilation, however, is pushed further than that of the pure for-itself as a simple self-consciousness. In self-consciousness, in fact, the two terms of the dyad “reflected-reflecting” (reflété-reflétant) were so incapable of presenting themselves separately that the duality remained perpetually evanescent and each term while positing itself for the other became the other. But with reflection the case is different since the “reflection-reflecting” which is reflected-on exists for a “reflection-reflecting” which is reflective. Reflected-on and reflective, therefore, each tend toward independence, and the nothing which separates them tends to divide them more profoundly than the nothingness which the For-itself has to be separates the reflection from the reflecting. Yet neither the reflective nor the reflected-on can secrete this separating nothingness, for in that case reflection (reflexion) would be an autonomous for-itself coming to direct itself on the reflected-on, which would be to suppose an external negation as the preliminary condition of an internal negation. There can be no reflection if it is not entirely a being, a being which has to be its own nothingness. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reflective consciousness alone can dissociate itself from what it posits — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 330; Imagination precedes and produces reality rather than reflecting it — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 152; Imagination differs from perception in conscious attitude, not object content (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Reflective consciousness alone can dissociate itself from what it posits #corroborates (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 330
• Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness #corroborates (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802
• Imagination differs from perception in conscious attitude, not object content #qualifies (0.75)
• Imagination precedes and produces reality rather than reflecting it #expands (0.70) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 152