The generation of personal reality is a process of genesis, analysis, and synthesis that determines how we form our understanding of the world. Together, these stages organise knowledge, experiences, and beliefs, shaping what becomes integrated into our personal reality.
Central to this process is the life-schema, a synthetic matrix that structures an individual’s experiences, knowledge, intentions, identities, and functional schemas. The life-schema is composed of the things we have, and held together by the intentions to have them. These things are punctuated by our ability to access and influence them, creating responsibility and maintaining the life-schema’s coherence.
Providing a stable and ordered construct with which to navigate our experience and existence, the matrix is considered synthetic because it is the outcome of generation – the way our personal and subjective view of reality is created.
The Generation Process
The generation of personal reality unfolds in three stages:
Genesis – Becoming aware of a thing.
Analysis – Examining and relating that thing to existing knowledge.
Synthesis – Combining insights to form a new conclusion.
Each stage builds on the previous one. New information emerges during genesis, is assessed in analysis, and integrated into existing schemas through synthesis. Each synthesis generates new points of genesis, initiating further cycles of generation. This exponential process steadily expands an individual’s awareness, knowledge, and subjective understanding of reality – their reality.
For example, encountering a banana for the first time (Thing A) leads to analysing its properties and combining it with something we already know – an orange (Thing B), to create a fruit salad (Thing C). This fruit salad becomes a new instance of genesis and a new “thing” in itself, encouraging further analysis — such as how grapes might enhance its flavour or how the combination could work in a smoothie. Each new connection expands our synthetic matrix in cycles of continuous and concurrent growth.
Inclusion and Exclusion
The personal reality generation process is shaped by inclusion and exclusion, conditions that determine what data is available for integration.
Inclusion occurs when data enters the personal reality generation process, leading to a conclusion known as a realisation — an accurate, coherent, and congruent understanding of experience.
Exclusion occurs when data is omitted from the process, resulting in a distortion — an inaccurate and incongruent conclusion that appears valid, and yet is flawed.
Exclusion may be passive or active and occurs prior to the reality generation process. It prevents data from being integrated, either consciously or unconsciously, leaving the individual unaware of the missing information.
Passive and Active Exclusion
Exclusion occurs in two primary forms:
Passive exclusion — An unintentional unawareness of data.
Active exclusion — An intentional effort to be unaware of data.
Both passive and active exclusions prevents accurate and congruent conclusions from forming.
Passive exclusion often results from limited awareness, distraction, or overlooked information. For example, misinterpreting a colleague’s distracted behaviour as disinterest may result from failing to notice their preoccupation with personal concerns.
Active exclusion occurs through the mechanisms of suppression and repression:
Suppression — The conscious decision to avoid certain thoughts, feelings, or memories.
Repression — The unconscious blocking of distressing content.
For instance, a person may suppress memories of an argument to avoid guilt or unknowingly repress a traumatic experience, creating gaps in their understanding.
Distortions as False Realisations
Distortions frequently masquerade as realisations because they seem valid based on the available data. Without awareness of excluded information, individuals may form conclusions that feel complete but are, in fact, inaccurate.
For example, a person who experienced a childhood house fire may repress the memory yet feel anxious around flames. Lacking awareness of the excluded memory, they may mistakenly attribute their anxiety to a general fear of kitchens or nervousness. This false and distorted conclusion appears valid until the repressed memory is recovered and integrated through revision.
Revision: Correcting Distortions
Revision is the process by which excluded content is identified, assessed, and integrated into the reality generation cycle. Through revision, distortions are corrected, transforming them into accurate realisations.
For example, a person who once believed they failed to support a loved one may later recall previously overlooked moments where they offered care and comfort. By recognising this excluded information, they revise their earlier knowledge, replacing a distorted conclusion with an accurate realisation.
An Example of Revision
After originally releasing this post, I had to update it after a friend and colleague of mine within Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service sent me the following video.
It shows a wonderful example of revision occurring in real-time.
It’s a great video in many ways, highlighting the distortion, and illustrating the emotional outcome of the revision process as film star Kathy Bates, lead actor in the film ‘Misery’, is released from a distortion that she has carried for years.
Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) and Revision
Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) is a highly-structured and person-centred therapeutic method designed to facilitate revision by allowing individuals to safely review past experiences, particularly traumatic incidents. TIR helps individuals to examine previously excluded content, often revealing the true source of emotional distress.
By guiding a person to review a distressing experience in detail, TIR helps surface suppressed or repressed data. This process enables the individual to identify overlooked information, leading to the correction of false conclusions. As these previously excluded details are integrated into their life-schema, distortions are replaced with accurate realisations, improving clarity and reducing distress.
In Closing
The generation of personal reality is an ongoing process shaped by the interplay of genesis, analysis, and synthesis. The resulting conclusions form a person’s life-schema, a structured synthetic matrix that holds together the things they have through their intention to have them.
Inclusion allows accurate conclusions to emerge, reinforcing the life-schema’s stability. Exclusion, whether passive or active, disrupts this process, producing distortions that weaken the life-schema. Because distortions often seem valid, they are easily mistaken for realisations. Only through revision — the reintegration of previously excluded data — can distorted conclusions be corrected.
Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) provides a structured method for this revision process, particularly for resolving trauma-related distortions. By revisiting past experiences in a safe, controlled environment, TIR enables individuals to identify overlooked content, transforming inaccurate conclusions into accurate realisations.
By understanding these processes, individuals can develop a more coherent, adaptive, and stable life-schema, improving their ability to manage experiences and form accurate conclusions about themselves and the world.
Stay safe,
Sean
