Abstract
Narcissists and psychopaths dissociate (erase memories) a lot (are amnesiac) because their contact with the world and with others is via a fictitious construct: The false self. Narcissists never experience reality directly but through a distorting lens darkly. They get rid of any information that challenges their grandiose self-perception and the narrative they had constructed to explicate, excuse and legitimize their antisocial, self-centred and exploitative behaviors, choices and idiosyncrasies.
In an attempt to compensate for the yawning gaps in memory, narcissists and psychopaths confabulate: They invent plausible “plug ins” and scenarios of how things might, could, or should have plausibly occurred. To outsiders, these fictional stopgaps appear as lies. But the narcissist fervently believes in their reality: He may not actually remember what had happened-but surely it could not have happened any other way!
These tenuous concocted fillers are subject to frequent revision as the narcissist’s inner world and external circumstances evolve. This is why narcissists and psychopaths often contradict themselves. Tomorrow’s confabulation often negates yesterday’s. The narcissist and psychopath do not remember their previous tales because they are not invested with the emotions and cognitions that are integral parts of real memories.
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Narcissism is well-described and largely understood in Western psychology. It is a major ‘station of the mind’, a stage in the development of any civilization. It seems probable that most if not all ancient and/or traditional cultures are narcissistic and that those that have retained ancient features today are narcissistic. Virtually all religions, including Buddhism, were established at the state-level by an autocrat and forced upon the population as a means of control. Confucianism, all the Abrahamics, Hinduism and so on, all share this general background. Ashoka tailored early Buddhism to be what he wanted it to be. The cabal that controls the West today is similarly hell-bent on controlling everyone and everything. The rulers who do this are cluster B narcissists and they demand a kind of ‘retail narcissism’ of their populations—enamorment with the ruler and the ruler’s rule book and intolerance of deviation from it. We can see this all around us today as cabal repeatedly lashes out against wrong-think while constantly ‘reimagining’ what that is. ABN
American Buddhist Net 