For thousands of years has some man some where mentally re-discovered that certain mental perspective whereby other men’s sense of reality can be seen to be in part, products of their own imagination & wishful thinking.  For eons this was the bailiwick of philosophers, but now science, in its sub atomic adventures, admits that it has been forced to join the choir. (Simply put: in the framework of quantum mechanics, measurements of reality are often found to alter the reality being measured; the mere looking at something changes what the something seems to be.)  Thus with some, the question has moved from one of thought experiment to laboratory fact.  But as always, the pragmatic, quite personal interest of a man with that certain hunger transcends all these others, like freed animals fleeing a zoo. 

The fact that ordinary people under certain circumstances "invent" their own reality is known by everyone. A person in shock over the death of a parent will begin to insist that the deceased mother visits them at night, or even a group of people bound by a certain religious, or cultural idea will claim that some group tied to a different such notion is under the literal control of an evil, supernatural force.  Such examples have been extant with man as long as he has experienced conscious thought.  They are too numerous, too constant and too transparent to need anything more than this mention.  For the focus of our coverage of this story lies obliquely elsewhere. 

When you move into the area commonly referred to as, "mystical or metaphysical" the prevailing view regarding reality is that unenlightened, sleeping men live in a false reality; one that is totally the product of their deluded, dozing minds.  This is the accepted, and felt-to-be, proper basis from which to launch an effort to, "wake up, and, see-the-light."  And it is not a model without merit and its own validity   --  but   -- 
for such a mental paradigm to prove practical, the view must be refined. 

Leaving aside extreme examples of humans proclaiming to see a reality which is patently not there to disinterested eyes, let me turn your attention to the true source of the question to begin with. 

Why causes ordinary, everyday, sane men to be agreeable to the suggestion that their ordinary, everyday, sane sense of reality could be of their own fabrication? 

What caused the first man who ever had such a thought 
to  --    have such a thought? 

After all, if man is living in an invented reality, then that IS his reality, and no one would have any way to realize the fact. 

In spite of what may seem to your mind to be examples to the contrary, at the instinctive, physical level, everyone knows perfectly well what reality is.  You cannot fool a stomach, nor bamboozle a lung.  You cannot mislead the non conscious operations in the brain.  They know when your equilibrium has been compromised; they know when conditions are too hot for your health, and they know when you are in such need of sleep that you can no longer function profitably. 

Exempting the neural areas responsible for conscious thought, man’s entire being has a full & perfect knowledge of reality.  It invents no personal version thereof --  it has no ability to do so,  and above all --  it has no need to do so.  Man’s instinctively led, physical life is as perfectly matched to the irrefutable, tangible reality of his environment as is the case with every other living creature of this planet. 

Neither men’s kidneys, nor cerebellums "invent" their own private sense of reality; they cannot, and it would serve no purpose if they could.  But move on to the cortical terrain of the brain, and --  Ah hah!  --  the rules of engagement with the environment change. 

By conscious thought being able-to, and driven-to "invent" a personal sense of reality apart from the physical one at hand, are men able to alter the physical conditions to more readily support their survival and comfort.  Any one can see this. 

What just anyone cannot see is a certain side effect of conscious thought.   A certain effect that is in fact  wholly responsible for every man’s private, personal reality of himself  every time he thinks and says, "I". 

The brain’s production of conscious thought resulted not only in men being able to conceive of themselves apart from their environment and thus be able to invent a reality in which they imagined themselves flying through the air long before they had the internal combustion engine, or even an understanding of aerodynamics, but it also had the effect of making them imagine that, "they themselves" --  the activity in their brain that produced the sensation of a, "they themselves"  --  was also separate from the environment, and was, so to speak  --  "its own man." 

So the "problem", (if you want to get-to-the-bottom-of-things),  is not that the thoughts of men are capable of conjuring up inner pictures of "reality" that do not match those clearly visible to a disinterested observer.  No, the most viscid-yet-slippery inner slope you must scale is the, almost-impossible-to-achieve realization that the thoughts you have --  are you. "You" in ever conceivable sense that is not simply your flesh & bones. 

Ergo for the few:  The problem is not that you constantly, "make up your own reality," 
it’s that your thoughts constantly "make up" you. 

It obviously does you no physical harm -- on the contrary as above noted.  And this condition is obviously the norm  --  just look around you. 

What bothers those with the longing for enlightenment is……is………..well………. 
well, it just bothers them, dammit. 

To be a fully functioning human being is to go along with a gigantic game of "pretend". 
Men are not dupes & fools, 
and the game is not some conspiracy that has been secretly imposed on them. 

Whenever anyone says, "I"  and  thinks of themselves in the way dictated by the  thoughts in their brain that say, "I",  they know quite well that they are engaged in a game of pretend.  Every cell in their body knows that this, "I" is an invented, strictly personal form of reality.  But that which is non verbally, "known" to us at our cellular level remains a blank space in consciousness………….for most people. 

Every person is what they are. 
They are what they physically appear to be, 
and they are also what the thoughts passing through their cortex are telling them that they are. 
Anything less than this is not a "conscious human being." 
Anything not more than this is a dreaming human being; asleep, yet walking around & talking. 

Everyone is thus a living paragon of reality-on-the-hoof, while simultaneously being a repository of imaginary-reality. 
    Man is a tangible castle of stone & mortar, 
    yet inside his halls roams the ghost of Duncan. 

Man is both real and unreal, 
and it is his unreal part that makes him so singularly real. 

To be enlightened and to-the-bottom-of-things 
is to have no unprofitable trafficking with your unreal part. 
         That’s it. 

The one handed camel races are about to start, so I will leave the remaining, few details with you for now. 
   The imagined, "Great Secret Of Life" does exist, 
    and it is not all that hard to see, 
    it’s just that……..well……. 
    it’s just that life evidently wants only 
    a very few people to even want to see it. 

                                                    Jan
 

(It is not uncommon for additions to appear to each day’s original story up until the end of that day, in case you’re interested.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There is a power struggle going on,
but it is not legit
in that one of the participants is an unwitting stalking-horse.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And a man says:
"Well, if my thoughts are not me,  then I don't know who I am."
          
                                   Now sir  --  we're getting somewhere.
 
 

                                                                 j