since we're not directly concscious of it.

i've posed a question to Dr. Dick about this very point.

he stated that he thinks i do not fully understand his point in my synopsis that follows (with respect to his paper):
***this set of numbers can be divided into subsets. those subsets can be construed as transformed by our senses for analysis via the fundamental transform of the model we construct.***

i reposed the synopsis as follows:
*** the data of reality as it impinges upon our senses is collected first through the filter of our senses and then we feed that filtered data through the fundamental transform (of fig 2) which yields the divided subset of numbers ***

i've yet to recieve a response.

in your example with respect to how our senses perceive a person from a distance, then closer and then up even closer this is all from the perspective of our senses at different distances.
there is also (as Dick would point out) the fact that in this process we at some point associate this image with an abstraction that we know ie. a person. but any way the point is this is a process involving filtering by the senses.
this filtering is what Dick doesn't trust. in a sense from your example you can see why, i mean first we think we see a point, next a person and then some unintelligible smear or blob like thing.
so what Dick wants to do is use this fundamental transform to decode this filtered data into something communicable and uncontradicable.
hopefully this fundamental transform would yield this thing we percieve in all the complexity that you allude to with some unification to it.
well anyway thats how i understand his approach at this point.

i don't think Dick presents a theory of the subconscious it is more like he offers an opinion of the wisdom of not totaly trusting it.

cheers, tim