Recycled Reality

What we see and what we thereafter feel somatically, let alone what we reflect about later, are basic and essential to complicated, yet truly marvelous, neuropsychological mechanisms of the human brain (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007). Somatosensory processing, paired with visual-spatial processing like Horney’s (1945), helps to web a seemingly continuous flow of consciousness to important underlying strands of reality that, like glue, centralize our experiences together while attaching us to them (Wang et al., 2021). Modern psychology does well to emphasize a highly-specialized and thus highly-utilized functioning of the mind’s executive and recollective abilities (Moscovitch et al., 2018). Actually, though, it really has touched only the surface of the underpinning relationships of exteroceptive and interoceptive neurocognitive anatomy and phenomenology that connect it to the conscious awareness of reality. Seen and felt experiences are quickly woven with and joined by their associative substance (Clark, 2020). Sullivan (1953) emphasizes how interpersonal relationships contribute to these experiences, shaping the content of perception and how these perceptions are integrated into our personal reality.

Stimuli & Visualizations

More specifically, then, the palpable effervescence(s) of external stimuli that are processed internally, that of their contextually and materialized germaneness to one’s own predilections, acquire a level of stickiness to the visual spatial fields of imagery (VSF-I) that were used to dissect them (Junker et al., 2021). Similar to Horney (1945), the uninhibited mind ebbs and flows between comparing likenesses and distinctions of incoming stimuli to others that are both similar and dissimilar in this environment, while repeatedly checking those stimuli against already-stored contextualizations of mirrored and synthesized stimuli in memory (Madore et al., 2019). Simultaneously, external stimuli that the mind internalizes also architects idiosyncratic visualizations of our reality; how and to what extent is still an area of growing interest and scholarship in both neuroscience and neuropsychology—a ‘tip of the iceberg’ sort of subject matter that this scholarly writing will attempt to unravel in humble fashion (van Kesteren et al., 2012).

Internalized versions of our visualizations, ones that are sourced from outside the mind, are the very strands of perception that are webbed together to form large portions of our perceived reality along with the contexts that source their situate schemas, scripts, and alike somatizations (Samaha et al., 2020). Short-lived snippets of what we see are rarely singular; nor do they occur distantly as unilateral instants (Wang et al., 2018). Likewise, these do not serve only as unattached features that the conscious mind uses to detect the surrounding world and then rakishly dispose of the experience(s) (Kensinger & Ford, 2020).

Within this realm, we try to understand peri-somatosensory mechanisms of reality and our place in it. However, normative notions about the novelty of our perceptions—that is, the true ‘freshness’ of an experienced reality that is quickly regarded as being real—unfortunately begins to creep in with doubt or blind conformity. Are truly new perceptions of reality, ones that have never before been viewed by another human mind, simply ones that are viewed for the first time, as in the case of a baby viewing a new face?

The Cinematic Connection

Once-camouflaged, and perhaps once-muted, features of perceived reality, or even those that are relatively sub-functional (i.e., deficits with memory), are not immediately apparent, but inevitably become more apparent when they are attended to unintentionally; they are strung together with our everyday experiential processing of perceived reality (Wang et al., 2021).

The ‘olden days’ of cinema present a good example of perceived reality—affected by time, movement/motion, and connection. They were frequented by theatre [theater] goers who were absorbed in the works of Chaplin and other black-and-white photo-dramas, which we now call “movies.” Cinema was the medium for which continuous photo-projection was able to make such entertainment possible visually. On a side, photo creations (photographs) were made possible by pictures and frames of pictures that were placed in front of lenses and a light. With such devices, mystical attributions were attached to pictures that, to the layman, appeared to move. In actuality, however, pictures or graphic impressions did not themselves move. Every second, then, picture frames on a machine like a conveyer belt were accelerated quickly through an assortment of amplification/projection lenses that enlarged small frames of picture-stills into much-larger resolutions and sizes of the same picture. The accelerated pace of the conveyer belt, with the proper application of lighting, made the details within the continuously fast-moving pictures appear to move; hence, “motion pictures.” While moving in reiterative cycles, cinema film was the material and the vehicle for which, with the aforementioned method of projection in mind, its pictures became regaled as being something magical or a process of projection that sourced magic. In actuality, though, when recycled on captured bits of film, this form of reality turned out to be a fanciful illusion (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007).

Another reality hit, too. After frequent use and without refined methods for film maintenance and preservation, cinema film occasionally cracked and eventually broke. In these instances, a cinema employee in the audience yelled as quickly as possible to the projectionist, “Did the film break?” This example encourages us to think more about the flow of reality. Modern science and basic physics ascribe to the idea that the way in which the world ‘happens to us’ and our senses is constant. This makes sense so far, but what about the fluidity of perceived reality and the mechanisms that support it?

The flow of time serves as the metronome of reality, but time alone does not necessarily speak to reality’s apparent fluid state. Meanwhile, let’s not forget the instinctually-innate genius of the mind; that genius does a great job at making the changed perception of what we see, and of what we likewise seem to perceive seamlessly and automatically, flow together as if it were one infinitely long roll of ‘cinema film’ (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007).   

Perception & Recollection

How we feel about what we perceive, and when we perceive it, matters. Perception—to ‘feel’ and to make associations within the internally-managed processing of the external world—is integral to some of the fundamental mechanisms of recollection. Recollection is the recognition versus the distinctive-understanding phenomenon that is then applied to the prospective acquisition of knowledge and to similar cognitive constructs (Clark, 2020). The concurrent cycles of learning that contribute to the ‘tying-loosening-retying’ of the aforementioned knowledge, in the context of recollection, will help with the unveiling of how, from the endlessly phenomenological rationalizations, our perceived reality is, not large-in-part our own but likely is as recycled as perception (Madore et al., 2019).  

Imagery & Recollection

In nearly every waking moment of our existence, our externally internal visual spatial fields of imagery (VSF-I) are bombarded incessantly with perceptions and judgments from ‘current’ experiences (van Kesteren et al., 2012). Those judgments juxtapose the daily happenings that exist within the universe of daily reality that the mind inhabits (Junker et al., 2021). Recollection, the recall of specific details from past events within related experiences (e.g., R-PAS’s “Form Quality”), initiates exteroceptive and interoceptive conscious fields of reality instantaneously, at least in the mind (Madore et al., 2019).

We see and we judge. What soon will be recalled to mind is often accompanied by inter-rater appraisals and recommendations (IRaR), and almost by a program of idiosyncratic opines that are offered to us like a pair of glassed and/or lens from which to see through (Wang et al., 2018). Those selections likely are chosen from attached perceived realities that can help us to flag, demarcate, and, as van der Kolk implies, ‘biomark’ paralleled brain-reality relationships of how to proceed and thus persist, even transgenerationally (e.g., If our genes could remember and speak, what would they say?) (Kensinger & Ford, 2020). A great example of this is the way that mental schemas spawn and develop over time to form and identify with life stories of introspective meaning (Samaha et al., 2020).

Stimuli & Recollection

How and where does recollection occur? Recollection resides within parameters of reachable sensory stimuli inside each ‘rabbit hole’ of recalling the past to the present (Wang et al., 2021). Recollection helps to facilitate real-life present and prospective processing of external environments and relativisms of time. Sometimes, we’re on the spot and stuck when we’re asked to visualize a specific movie scene or an associatively-famous related quote; waves of repetitious ‘glimpse-and-glosses’ of remembrance seem to leave us teased as related, yet undesirable, memories ride in ‘tip of your tongue' fashion. In this case, the mind travels by the retrogressed shuttles of recollection. Philosophers of the early twentieth century quipped this phenomenon as being mildly attributed to millions of minions that work endlessly in our minds (e.g., Locke). This can be attributed to such ‘think fast’ moments, those that are stuck across pertinently-relational stored chunks of memory and even those that, if followed to completion, might actually lead to the initially- sought recollection. Of course, these, and much of what is discussed here, are oversimplifications of more-complex processes that occur multi-consciously and regardless of our conscious acknowledgment.

Memory & Consciousness

Accessing memory, that which involves the recursive opening, reading, and experiencing (ORE) of the past, is related to similar happenings that are activated non-explicitly (a.k.a., non-declaratively) and unconsciously (ex., REM). During similar altered states of consciousness, then, such pathways of memory retrieval are less obvious. It is crucial to think not solely upon what we remember, but also through recent hypotheses (e.g., Theory of Mind [ToM], and the Integrative Memory Model [IMM]) of recollection, how we successfully do so. Indeed, then, the singular to distinctly heterogeneous categorizations of memory—for example, simply remembering something in its context—are vast.

Most people think of episodic memory as being the type of memory that includes information about recent or past events and experiences (e.g., last month’s dinner you had with friends or where you parked your car this morning). The recollection of experiences is contingent on three steps of memory processing: encoding, consolidation/storage, and retrieval. The hippocampus and surrounding structures in the temporal lobe are important in episodic memory and are part of an important network called the default mode network. This network includes several brain areas, such as the frontal and parietal regions, and has been implicated in the functioning of episodic memory (Goedert & Willingham, 2002; McGaugh, 2000; Clawson et al., 2021; Baena et al., 2021).

Semantic memory refers to general knowledge, including knowledge of facts. Your knowledge of what a bike is and of how its gear box works are examples of semantic memory. Working memory is used to describe the process where one “holds on to” and manipulates small bits of current information in mind, like a telephone number. Though commonly referred to as short-term memory, working memory is actually more closely related to attention and falls under the domain of executive function. The capacity of working memory is limited, allowing us to keep only a few bits of information in mind at one time. Working memory involves the frontal cortex and the parietal lobe (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 1986; Funahashi, 2017).

From Memory Processing to Storage & Recollection

While considering the heterogeneous ‘to-and-fro,’ yet relational, migration of our collection-recollections, along with their associatively resultant behaviors, at this juncture we also will discuss the importance of declarative information that parallels related activators of recall. For example, while reading and/or being told a story, we obviously use ‘surface-levels’ of working memory in order to sustain attention not only for what is being heard and seen but also for what is felt reciprocally and interpersonally. True, most of our cognitive reserve, or more commonly ‘brain power,’ is spent on acquiring information, but it is spent mostly in the inert diction that governs its storage. Does the structure of incoming information (i.e., structured versus unstructured), that which will shortly furnish the fabric of our memories, matter in terms of how memories are brought to the present mind?

It would seem that our discussion begins to branch out from the simply paired-and-paralleled constructs of storage and retrieval, which presumably must occur consciously, to the explicit emphases of our attention that attend to our predilections within these processes. Cognitive control placates the literature as an influential model for best explaining the dynamic task-switching of memory recollection and familiarity; it also, particularly in its absence, hints that office ‘opening and closing’ hours are not all-or-none because visitation hours do not always apply to all (Alberini, 2011).

Cerebral & Cognitive Costs in Collection/Recollection

A growing body of research recently has expanded on this idea in which a multiverse of storages may still be paired-and-paralleled with an overarching lower cost in processing objects and tasks of recollection. Costs of the collection-recollection-related processes, both cellular and cognitively, are inevitably constraining to the mind’s ability to actuate the full potential of its cognitive control over such revitalizations. The mind’s ability to bring past recollections to the forefront are only as effective as the many tangential processes that are involved in inhibiting other juxtaposed tasks; this, too, in part, facilitates supercilious and rate-limiting costs of collection-recollections (Leung et al., 2011; Sobczak-Edmans et al., 2016).

The cerebral and cognitive costs are absorbingly endless; there are far too many to discuss here, but let’s try to focus on those that consciously sub-type the different kinds of retrieval and, likewise, centers of control.

Regulation of contents and tasks of recollection, not to mention declarative and procedural rules of the functioning of working memory, requires cogent, structured, and homogeneous levels of visual and audio forms of memory information that can be translated in order for such regulation to be metabolized, processed, and utilized ‘on-demand’ and prospectively (Baena et al., 2021; Dudai et al., 2002). Given this, however, the mind is still able to translate non-relational information because the perceptual environment and landscape of where memories are stored may change.

Perception, Storage & Recollection

Can the novelty aspect(s) of our perceptions increase the ‘realness’ that is attached to our percepts of reality and, thus, our recollections of said novel reality? No. Presuming that all recollections decline solely on the basis of age, neither stimulus-novelty nor age, in this way, improves memory. On a side from this, retrieval practice increases recollection-based, but not familiarity-based, recognition memory, regardless of age. Does our thinking, for recollection, exist within a rigid framework? Could our thinking exist singularly in a specific mental (e.g., externally internal), physical (e.g., book), or even philosophical (e.g., collective) framework or boundary? This line of thought stems from the idea that we often think inside a constrained box of perceived reality that, unbeknownst to the conscious mind, exists within a much-larger box or frame of mind, and knowledge of the world.

On an externally internal level, no doubt, we perceive reality in the physical sense. Internal representations of an externally-viewed object are physically, then chemically, represented in ocular-temporal to prefrontal cortical areas of the cerebrum. Similarly, memory-wise, what we see and perceive are stored physically in representationally-traced areas of select lobes in the brain (Bennett et al., 2013).

Riding this same wave, we know that memory exists external to the cerebral processes of the mind (e.g., Similar to the function of a Pandas library within a NLP sandbox). Books, and more recently the Internet, act in this way as external, yet certainly not our own, forms of memory storage; associatively both physical and philosophical. The best chance that your memory, thus your perceptions, have of attaining unadulterated and novel reality is close to nil.

Perceived, Yet Recycled, Reality

Far too many revolutions of perceived reality have been passed down and absorbed into the ‘here and now’ visual spatial fields of imagery (VSF-I), and into associated internal memory spaces. As a direct result, nearly every new experience to eventual understanding of possible trajectories seems to be based primarily on a recycled version of conscious reality.

Understanding, knowledge, and our perceived, yet recycled, reality accrue over the storage/accrual rate of knowledge, thereby limiting steps of ‘time and process’ that, by the nature of time-flow, become less novel. In this way, we may say that true/novel reality exists for only extremely-short periods of time, likely around the point of familiarity, if ever at all.   

Perception, Time & Fractured Reality

The purpose of this writing is to continue where the “Hallucination, or Reality” blog left off by stating here that not only is “our perceived reality not our own,” but also that it is fractured and must, therefore, be recycled. ​Reality actually comes to the mind in snippets; but because the conscious mind is so good at filling in the gaps, the mind’s perception of time, and its internal representation of what goes on outside it, appears to be continuous. Time is time, and as far as we can tell, it is real. It will never stop and thus will forever be constant. Time works differently, and our conceptualization of it differs inside the mind from the way that it actually works outside of the mind. For this reason, we have only to state herein that the undercurrent of consciousness is guided by the principles of time and the way in which it continues to feed forward.  

The complicating part of a fractured reality hinges on the idea that reality is rarely and purely brand-new. Our daily schemas—how we act, what we say, and how we judge things out and make decisions—are passed down in template form. Yes, there is free will, but a large portion of it must ascribe to societal conformities of normal, typical, and productive. ​Psychologically, many of the mood, personality, and learning disorders tell us that more that 90% of all humans will experience one of these at one time or another, which is not considered atypical. The problem comes to light when the situational turns systemic. Genetically, though, these levels of functioning are already determined and wait for the right environment to awake them epigenetically. In this way, and like a spider’s web, reality is recycled. Next, we tackle the breaks in the film.

With breaks in the film likened to a fractured reality, our perception of reality is presently fed to us by those around us from their perceptions.  Second, the environment was created by and for those from our past who’ve died but live on through what they’ve created physically and by their ideas that live in the book of books that their writings have inspired. There’s nothing wrong with either of these, but together these create the simulation of our perceived reality that feels like Orwell’s “1984.”

On a side from this, the photoreceptors in the ocular-temporal to prefrontal cortical areas of the cerebrum need light so that we can see and perceive anything. The physical properties of light tell us that while light, like time, flows constantly and quickly, it differs from time in that it can be turned off. Research is not saying that the brain has to be awake and, like a light, on at all times of the day and night in order for it to get a constant stream of reality; instead, research is saying simply that the physical properties of existence that we are a part of just do not allow for that possibility. We turn off, sort of. For some of us, trauma is the lens that we look through. Both are different blogs for days to come.

​The mind and the body perceive the reality that we have been given. That reality is their authenticity through ‘time and process,’ and, yet, it must be challenged. Why? This blog is meant to motivate people who are faced with the lasting effects of PTSD and Depression.

Our reality is screwed because, in actuality, it is… And we are not to blame for this. There is more to be gotten, more to be had, more to look forward to with the understanding that our perspective of the world is not our own doing. The world is bad because it really is. Not all of it is bad, but the reality is that reality is getting scarier by the day. This is not a hallucination’s thought experiment; this is truly what’s left over. Scientifically speaking from my lead, reality is broken, and we see it mirrored back to us in the model organisms that science studies. ​Everything now and prospectively happens over ‘time,’ and the span of that occurrence is an ever-changing process (time and process). Healing from the past is no different, but I believe it would encourage and psychologically up-build if readers who are affected by PTSD and Depression were affirmed of perceived reality’s ‘starting materials.’ We all start with cognitive- and emotion-based capacity to facilitate functioning, development, and ways for coping and growing in a safe and nurturing environment, one that fewer and fewer individuals today can state that they can identify with. For the most part, all of the anatomically physiological parts of the brain, and the cognitive mind-parts that underlie it, are born pristinely to function at the highest human level…So far.

© 2023 Christopher Schroeder of New World Psychology, LLC.

Past Comments:

“You could go into an existential crisis after reading this post. What a brilliant idea and perspective of reality. The metaphors and analogies were beautifully illustrated in a way that I actually understand the content! Definitely sharing!”

—Becky S. (August 2023)

“This was extremely interesting to read! You can definitely feel your interest and passion about this topic, but also neuropsych in general, which makes it that much better to read. I feel really happy knowing that you are specializing in Neuro because we need more voices who can and want to bridge the gap between what’s a super specialized field and the rest of the population who may feel this kind of information is inaccessible or too complex. You came across very professional, knowledgeable, but also personal. I especially loved the references to photography and film, I thought that was a brilliant connection and way to illustrate your ideas.”

—Connor S. (September 2023)

“Hello Chris! I recently came across your blog post, which was recommended by a friend from a conference. As someone who is passionate about reflective writing, I found your article to be compelling. Although I do not often leave comments, I felt compelled to do so this time because I author psych textbooks and was impressed by the depth of this post. Learning that you are a doctoral student has deepened my respect for your abilities. I also appreciated the cinematic references and your adept use of metaphors in your piece, which reminded me of a Billy Crystal film from the early 2000s that blended concepts of dreams with reality breaks. Whether intentional or not, this made for an enjoyable read. I look forward to exploring and sharing more of your work with my colleagues. Welcome to the field, and I eagerly anticipate your future contributions.”

—Robert K. (January 2024)

"I was looking for a therapist for my first grade autistic son and accidentally clicked on the blogs. I've heard about Sarah, but I didn't realize that these long and creative blogs came from her husband. It's interesting to know how we perceive reality and how it might not be what we think it is. Do you think our perceptions are shaped by our knowledge of others' past experiences of us, too?? Our brains are amazing. Thanks for some new insight."

—Samantha O. (February 2024)