“Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality.”
~ Jacque Fresco
Many psychologists believe in a specific end goal to therapy, which is to consciously take back ownership of all that we’ve been projecting into the world and onto others—referred to as individuation in Jungian theory. Yet, I wonder what would happen to humanity if we projected nothing outside of ourselves, re-internalizing (introjecting) all of the feelings, motives, imaginings, and conflicts formerly experienced as occurring outside of us or between us and others. Would this in effect nullify the need for an outside world of things, people, events, and situations? Would we still perceive an outside world at all, or exist entirely within ourselves? Is the outside world merely one big projection or imagining of all that stirs within us? I cannot definitely answer these questions, simply because I don’t know the answers—nobody does.
There is an ongoing debate going on, as to whether an objective, relatively unchanging reality exists—regardless of whether or not we observe it—or if so called reality shapeshifts to fit our expectations and projections. Some quantum physicists have concluded that reality exists one way when not observing it, and another way when we observe it, the exact form depending upon the inclinations of the observer. In layman’s terms, what we see is what we expect to see.
Metaphorically speaking, Adam and Eve made the decision to take a bite of the fruit, sending them into the world of experiential knowledge of both good and bad; and thus exiled from their former place of blissful ignorance—replaced with the desire for and consequences of full knowledge. Now they would know and struggle with their inner selves through their experiences with things, people, events, and situations in the outside world; the beginning of projection.
Regardless of what you believe about the bible, it contains many truths about the human condition. The irony being that the bible was probably our first introduction to human psychology and projection, not the Freuds, Jungs, etc.
My personal conclusion: The outside world is as much a part of us as our inner worlds. Knowing our inner selves requires experiencing ourselves through our struggles to survive and thrive in an outside world full of things, people, events, and situations; none of which are within our complete control—being full of hard knocks, moments of happiness, and constant change and uncertainty. These experiences, some being voluntary and others involuntary, are filtered through our hopes, desires, fears, beliefs, misunderstandings, expectations, and memories, mirroring what we think, feel, and struggle with at any given moment in time, consciously or otherwise. This is the purpose of projection as I see it, and without it our worlds would be flat and colorless, providing little incentive to act on anything, regardless of the truth or objective reality of what we experience.
Note: I’ve written several other blog posts on the topic of projection, but from different perspectives, one being a fictional piece. Here are the links to three of them:
© 2025 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
Notes from David 