My dog (along with many other animals) does not recognize her own reflection in the mirror. She sees the image as another dog, who is real enough to attack... The image in the mirror is real enough to elicit a real emotional response.
It seems humans on the other hand can recognize what is an image representing reality, and simultaneously part of us doesn't recognize the image as not real. Images can elicit real emotional responses. We can watch television, being drawn into the point of experiencing real feelings of emotion. We can play video games, feeling satisfied over accomplishing goals that don't exist in actual physical reality. The imagery and experience is a close representation of real experiences in nature... enough to trigger our neurotransmitters...
As humans this seems to have the advantage of creating new kinds of realities into our environment. We can create new goals in order to shape our environment into a totally different way, creating things that can help get our needs met, things that don't actually exist in nature. Yet at the same time, the ability to feel stimulated by represented realities can create situations where our needs might not be met if what is being done isn't linked to some kind of real survival strategy or means.
This real and unreal experience creates a blurred reality. Part of us knows we can manipulate our experience of reality, while another part is still rooted in a more natural reality... We can only drift so far out of the natural reality, keeping our feet tied to the Earth, while our heads can look onward and upward into the Heavens.
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