a dream of perception

You have these images, flashes, judgments, appearances, feelings, and thoughts that encompass the perception of people the first few times you meet them. Before you get to know them, there's this persona that differs from the perception down the road. It's almost like the image of a character as you're reading a book. That image evolves as the character does, and when you finish the book the protagonist is a whole different person in your mind--complete. Now you look back at those perceptions in the past, and they're vastly different than the complex people you know today.