Constructing Reality

In psychiatry, psychosis is defined as a loss of contact with reality. Perhaps the most obvious interpretation of this definition would be that there is some kind of objective reality ‘out there’ that most of us (‘normal’ people) are in contact with. However, in this post-modern world it is probably no surprise if I suggest that, instead of there being an objective reality, each of us constructs our own experience of what is ‘real’.

The view that there is no objective reality is strongly supported by the neurosciences and what we could call the contemplative sciences, the latter representing the concepts and methods that have arisen during the 2500 year history of introspective observation and scholarly debates by practitioners of Buddhist (and related) meditation.

The neurosciences, using experimental and clinical observations, have demonstrated that perceptual experiences (seeing, hearing, etc) are constructed. Unlike a camera that reproduces a scene, the sensory systems of the brain sample information about the world around us, code it in neural activity, carry out analysis of key features and then construct (and project) a perceptual experience. What we hear, see and feel is a constructed simulation.

In regard to our belief systems, the cognitive neurosciences have explored how we put together concepts and information to create conceptual frameworks that we call our beliefs. From the point of view of contemplative sciences all concepts, indeed all experiences of the phenomenal world, are insubstantial and have no ‘reality’; no independent essence.

Going further, the contemplative sciences have concluded that all mental experiences are created by mind. Our moment-to-moment mental experiences are viewed as being dominated by “primitive beliefs about reality” and are described as being like a dream that we have while awake.

Given these conclusion from western and eastern traditions, perhaps it would be helpful to define psychosis not as a loss of contact with reality, but as an alteration in the way the experience of reality is constructed.