The same applies to the case at hand: Although the purpose of all of these symbols and variations from beginning to end is only the activation of the souls, nevertheless, as a result of the will of God they imagine that they are seeing them in He Himself. The blessed and exalted One does this in order to enhance and increase the understanding of the souls to the utmost extent, which is part of His intent for the Creation, in order to bestow benefit on His created beings.
Do not consider this surprising, as you will find a similar occurrence with our corporeal perception as well. For example, our sense of sight: We see a great, wide world before us, along with all of the wonders that fill it. However, in fact we see all of that only within our own interior being. That is, in the back of our brains there is a kind of a photographic machine depicting everything that we see there, and nothing outside of us. God has made for us there, in our brains, a kind of polished mirror that inverts everything seen there, so we will see it as outside our brains, before our faces. Although what we see outside of us is not a real thing, how grateful we must still be to His Providence, may He be blessed and exalted, for having made that polished mirror within our brains, enabling us to see and perceive everything appearing outside of us. He thereby granted us the power to perceive everything with clear knowledge and perception, to measure every object on the inside and the outside, and the like. Without that, we would lose most of our perceptions.