apperception

The mind's perception of itself as the subject or actor in its own states, unifying past and present experiences; self-consciousness, perception that reflects upon itself.

Psychological or mental perception; recognition.

Conception is... the simplest act of thinking; it is the apprehension of the universal, as perception is the apperception of the particular.

For as she smiled I was gifted a glimpse past the apperception of an anonymous spherical quantity of human flesh; and into the individual.

The general process or a particular act of mental assimilation of new experience into the totality of one's past experience.