Definition of "sensorium"

The continuum is broken, and the rise of writing helps to break up as well the continuum of the sensorium, to locate consciousness in the written word. What the written word is to the sensorium, the ego is to the entire consciousness, and the city is to the entire encirclement of nature.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 196

[…] in all injuries of the spine whereby a communication with the sensorium is cut off, it is the parts below the injury which are deprived of sensation, while those above retain their sensibility.

1820, Henry Matthews, chapter VIII, in The Diary of an Invalid, London: John Murray, page 231

Others have conſidered infinite Space as the Receptacle, or rather the Habitation of the Almighty : But the nobleſt and moſt exalted Way of conſidering this infinite Space is that of Sir Iſaac Newton, who calls it the Senſorium of the Godhead. Brutes and Men have their Senſoriola, or little Senſoriums by which they apprehend the Preſence and perceive the Actions of a few Objects, that lie contiguous to them.

1714 July 9, Joseph Addison, editor, The Spectator, volume VII, number 565, page 36

The ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door, ſtruck likewiſe ſtrong upon the ſenſorium of my uncle Toby,—but it excited a very different train of thoughts ;—the two irreconcileable pulſations inſtantly brought Stevinus, the great engineer, along with them, into my uncle Toby’s mind […]

1760, Laurence Sterne, chapter X, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 4th edition, volume II, London: R. and J. Dodsley, page 67