The answers to the questions below, and indeed even the questions themselves, are just my current best guesses. I’m a long way yet from having mastered fabrication. Still, they might at least be useful pointers.
Which situations are the crucial ones for promoting this hypothesis to attention?
I should wonder whether I’ve fabricated an option if
I was sad and frustrated, then felt relief and a sudden opening of the space around me, as though the wall of a dungeon cell had fallen away to reveal a sunny fresh-air meadow.
My preferred alternative involves “just the good things” “without the bad things”.
The word “just” has come out of my mouth, or passed through my internal monologue.
Things seem really easy and obvious over here, and why does everybody else have to make things so difficult?
“If only…”, “Why can’t everyone…”, “Clearly we should…”
How do I actually move my mind to recognize that the option I’m considering might be fabricated?
If I have fabricated whatever option I’m considering, it’s likely that I have conflated “map” and “territory”. To take the fabrication hypothesis seriously, I’ll need to make a move that extricates me from that tangle. I could
say to myself, “There’s a way the world is. I think the world is one way, but it might be another.”
remember a time when things were not what they seemed. (My own reference experience is a stick that seems bent when sticking up out of water.)
name one plausible candidate for a crux, or at least notice what it’s like to try.
Once I’ve posed the hypothesis, how do I confirm or deny it?
Try to imagine the option playing out in detail. Go slow. Watch for a sensation of slipping, skipping, or blankness. Try to add additional detail in those places, and notice what it feels like to do so.
If there’s a lot of blankness, and if you seem to shift into an easy neutral gear (or to enter creative mode, or to cast “accio solution”) while you fill in the details, this is evidence of fabrication.
If there’s a sustained feeling of grounded continuity, and you find yourself wanting to Google things or otherwise check the outside world when you try to fill in details, this is evidence against fabrication.
When I’ve successfully identified a fabricated option, how can I prevent the usual harm?
Notice that you feel constrained, and create space where you can. I suspect this alone will dramatically mitigate the damage. Fabrication comes from a kind of desperation, and people tend to be rash when they’re desperate.
The Litany of Gendlin may also help, if that’s something that works for you. Fabrication is a way of trying to force reality to be a certain way just by imagining hard enough. Remind yourself that reality is mind-independent.
Look for a crux. I predict that the struggle of doing this with a fabricated option will get your wheels back in contact with the pavement.
How can I stop making this kind of mistake in the first place?
First, snap your fingers when you think you may have fabricated an option some time recently. Next, snap your fingers when think you may have fabricated an option just moments ago. Then, snap your fingers when you suspect you’re in the middle of fabricated an option. Finally, snap your fingers when you think you may be about to fabricate an option.
Appendix
The answers to the questions below, and indeed even the questions themselves, are just my current best guesses. I’m a long way yet from having mastered fabrication. Still, they might at least be useful pointers.
Which situations are the crucial ones for promoting this hypothesis to attention?
I should wonder whether I’ve fabricated an option if
I was sad and frustrated, then felt relief and a sudden opening of the space around me, as though the wall of a dungeon cell had fallen away to reveal a sunny fresh-air meadow.
My preferred alternative involves “just the good things” “without the bad things”.
The word “just” has come out of my mouth, or passed through my internal monologue.
Things seem really easy and obvious over here, and why does everybody else have to make things so difficult?
“If only…”, “Why can’t everyone…”, “Clearly we should…”
How do I actually move my mind to recognize that the option I’m considering might be fabricated?
If I have fabricated whatever option I’m considering, it’s likely that I have conflated “map” and “territory”. To take the fabrication hypothesis seriously, I’ll need to make a move that extricates me from that tangle. I could
say to myself, “There’s a way the world is. I think the world is one way, but it might be another.”
remember a time when things were not what they seemed. (My own reference experience is a stick that seems bent when sticking up out of water.)
name one plausible candidate for a crux, or at least notice what it’s like to try.
Once I’ve posed the hypothesis, how do I confirm or deny it?
Try to imagine the option playing out in detail. Go slow. Watch for a sensation of slipping, skipping, or blankness. Try to add additional detail in those places, and notice what it feels like to do so.
If there’s a lot of blankness, and if you seem to shift into an easy neutral gear (or to enter creative mode, or to cast “accio solution”) while you fill in the details, this is evidence of fabrication.
If there’s a sustained feeling of grounded continuity, and you find yourself wanting to Google things or otherwise check the outside world when you try to fill in details, this is evidence against fabrication.
When I’ve successfully identified a fabricated option, how can I prevent the usual harm?
Notice that you feel constrained, and create space where you can. I suspect this alone will dramatically mitigate the damage. Fabrication comes from a kind of desperation, and people tend to be rash when they’re desperate.
The Litany of Gendlin may also help, if that’s something that works for you. Fabrication is a way of trying to force reality to be a certain way just by imagining hard enough. Remind yourself that reality is mind-independent.
Look for a crux. I predict that the struggle of doing this with a fabricated option will get your wheels back in contact with the pavement.
How can I stop making this kind of mistake in the first place?
First, snap your fingers when you think you may have fabricated an option some time recently. Next, snap your fingers when think you may have fabricated an option just moments ago. Then, snap your fingers when you suspect you’re in the middle of fabricated an option. Finally, snap your fingers when you think you may be about to fabricate an option.