The process of reading is considered in the context of the problem of consciousness. The concept of modes of consciousness functioning is applied, similar to the concept of consciousness registers according to D. A. Leontiev. Four modes of functioning of consciousness, important for psychology, are isolated from literary sources: feeling, distancing, dialogue with the author, internal dialogue. They are supplemented by a meditation register. The concept of chronotope, introduced into science by M. M. Bakhtin, is analyzed according to the criteria of differential psychology. It is assumed that readers’ preferences are due to the similarity of the chronotopes of their life world and the author’s.

Philosophical thought, both in the past and today, is integrally intertwined with psychology in its various dimensions. Cartesian reflections by M. K. Mamardashvili determine the possibility of approaching the psychological understanding of the “New Philosophy”, as well as general scientific categories of consciousness and awareness. Comparison of the content of the categories of consciousness and awareness in the Cartesian formulation and in the modern “Science of consciousness” allows us to expand the understanding of the driving forces of human thought in its objective and subjective (personal) manifestations. Individual outstanding carriers of consciousness of various historical eras, objectifying their perception, emotions, intellect and will in a free dialogue (internal communication) in the language of philosophy, turn out, paradoxically, psychologically consolidated in a diverse continuum of real existence in combination with individual forms of other existence (certain or other types of transcendence).