“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”— Marcus Aurelius
The understanding that thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are mental processes created by your nervous system is called Meta-Cognitive Awareness. We do not see the world as is really is, only as it looks from our current perspective. Those who lack Meta-Cognitive Awareness are more certain of their interpretations than they should be, and so are vulnerable to state-dependent distortions.
Examples of recurring patterns:
I. Poignancy & depression
Bad things happen and feeling depressed when they do is not indicative of a mood disorder. However, the tendency to parse negative events into a touching story of the unfairness of the world, or luck so bad that it defies the laws of probability seem designed to arouse pity or sorrow in an audience that consists primarily of the narrator and occasionally one or two confidants
To the narrator, the poignant story seems to be an accurate to description of the events in her life. She is not trying to arouse pity and, in fact, may not share it with anyone else. From her perspective, she is telling it like it is. However, as seen from the therapist’s perspective, her touching narrative is a cause as well as an effective of her melancholia. This is a seductive trap and those who have become comfortable in it resist changing their poignant narrative. [For those willing to explore a fresh narrative: See Detachment from Outcomes and The Serenity Prayer].
II. Vows of abstinence and violations
The predicament of a problem drinker, described below, illustrates how the same event [a first lapse] is appraised differently before it happens than in retrospect. Incentive Use Disorders tend to produce a tragic sequence of sincere vows to control the incentive use problem, followed by thoughtless violations of the vow, self-loathing, and a repetition of the sequence.
State-Dependent Motivation: Problem Drinking
Ernest Hasslebring is a bright, successful lawyer who has a lot going for him, but his drinking problem is literally destroying his life. To summarize this trap: Before the lapse Hasslebring appraises the payoffs of a first drink differently than he will later when he looks back on it. He really meant it when, after his second DUI, he vowed to quit drinking — "and this time I really mean it." Nevertheless, a few weeks later when the sting of his arrest was no longer as salient, he appraised things differently. He made his vow of abstinence in one motivational state, and broke it in another. Needless to say, Hasslebring will—like all the other times— discover that having a first drink was a mistake. And this time he will really mean it. . . at least until the next time the motivation evoked by the most recent lapse is far away.
Immediately after his DUI, Hasslebring’s vow to quit drinking was in accord with his local motivational state. Since he was unaware that motivation is state-dependent, he assumed that he would always appraise the costs and benefits of drinking as he did at that moment. So he assumed (once again) that it would be easy to adhere to this vow. His history of repeatedly failing to adhere to this vow is not due to stupidity or a disease, but is the result of being taken in by the Soul Illusion. His current bias [either the motivation to drink or the shame of failure] is always invisible to him and he assumes that he sees things as they really are and will always see things as he does now.
Problem drinkers are notorious for appraising the wisdom of a first drink differently before it happens than in retrospect. This perverse pattern of vowing to change and then relapsing, illustrates two corollaries of the Soul Illusion. The fact that he has made this same mistake many times and each time believes that he has learned the lesson this time, and will never make this mistake again illustrates the Illusion of Sate Permanence. The Illusion of Certainty is illustrated by his willingness to make the vow with little attention to how he will get himself to adhere to it, because he is certain that he has really learned the lesson this time and so it will require no effort to get himself to act in accord with it.
Reification and the Soul Illusion
Reification refers to treating an abstraction as if it had concrete or material existence. Hasslebring treats his current appraisal [whatever it is] as valid and so he assumes he will always appraise the costs and benefits of a first drink as he does now. In this sense he Reifies his current appraisal and so takes it more seriously than he should. This thinking error is responsible for his endless sequence of vowing that he will never make this mistake again and later breaking that vow. The solution to the Reification Fallacy is the De-Reification that results from appreciating the Soul Illusion.