If the latter, then hunger pangs must be some sort of illusion, a stand-in for states we cannot access consciously.
The final convict scene contains 'no bitterness, no pangs of an unclean conscience, but only sadness concentrated on a ruined life' (p. 16).
He has suffered little in the course of the action, though he has experienced the pangs of the unthinking and the selfish.
Others sensed the pain, in a state of full consciousness, as a very sharp pang immediately preceding a dramatic cure.
All loves of after life can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen!
While the dissolution of the personal into the impersonal may have mitigated the sting of death, it did not seem to relieve the pang of guilt.
Incomes from non-farm sources are necessary to offset the shortfalls in the farm sector, and abate the pangs of hunger and misery during the lean season.
Most priests experienced crises of faith, feelings of unworthiness or pangs of guilt if they abandoned their parishioners, but these tended to be more modest and temporary.