ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to explore how different modes of our participation in fictional experience are related to our experience of reality. Different from approaches that emphasize the interweaving between our experience of what is real and of what is fictional, this chapter defends an account that emphasizes the discontinuities between the two kinds of experiences. Defending this view on discontinuity between reality and fiction, which relies on the discontinuity between perceiving and imagining, however, does not mean to neglect the influences between the two domains. These influences are bidirectional: on the one hand, our experience of reality influences the shaping of fictions; on the other hand, our experience of fiction also has an impact on how we make sense of what is real. The metaphor of permeability is here adopted in order to address this two-way influence. The argument supporting this view on discontinuity and permeability between the experience of reality and of fiction is based on phenomenological discussion of how the modifications of beliefs, emotions, and desires in the experience of fiction are both influenced by and have themselves an impact on our sense for what is real.
