When I think of awareness and perception I harken back to my college days where I think of phenomenology: to be is to perceive. Don Idhe. Husserl. Even Descartes has his version of perceiving and being.

Don Juan said that the core of our being was the act of perceiving, and that the magic of our being was the act of awareness. For him perception and awareness were a single, functional, inextricable unit, a unit which had two domains: the attention of the tonal, or the First Ring of Power, and the attention of the nagual, or the Second Ring of Power. (The Second Ring of Power, 274)

Castaneda talks about three types of attention, where attention is a level of attainment. (The Fire from Within, 65)

First attention, or the attention in the day-to-day world.

Second attention, or the attention in dreaming.

Third attention, or the glow of awareness beyond the luminous cacoon.