Picture, if you will, an island paradise — while your mental image is,  the paradise is not real. Similarly, while the memory of your first teacher is real, the image is not really them.

The pipe in Duchamp's famous painting is not a pipe, but the painting is real.

It's easy to mistake the image for the reality, but a mistake nonetheless. The reality is always present.

When I remember the scent of orange blossoms as I was riding my bike through the orchard, I experience the memory, not the blossoms.

If, perhaps due to chafing lycra, I was distracted and did not notice — was not conscious of — the blossoms or the scent, then I did not experience them.

History is a part of reality. If I enjoy the fragrant blossoms only to discover later that the scent was a vestige of the fabric softener in my cycle jersey (which may explain the chafing), then the reality is the one that is present.

If you are aware of your experiencing self, you are aware of the limits of reality, because to "be" something (real, experience) is to "not be" other things. For consciousness to experience reality, then, it must identify it against what is not reality. The implication is that consciousness extends beyond reality.

These metaphors are inadequate, but directional: We cannot be aware of what we do not attend to, but we can experience limits to our attention. It is as if we were travelling at a steady speed in a completely dark forest with only a flashlight, and wherever we point the light, the view zooms to fill our entire field of vision, so that we see no darkness. Consciousness of the light establishes (manifests) the darkness.