Need a special term for fooling oneself.

[HareBrain]

Thanks guys. I'll try "imprinting" the next few times and see how well it fits. I still think there might be something even better out there, though, so if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be grateful for them.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Hmm, off the top of my head: synthesis, ghosting, shading, echoing, mimicking, rendering, masking...

 

[Ursa major]

Have you an example, HB, where his change in perspective changes the external world? Without this, it looks like a simple psychological technique such as:

• someone who's nervous about giving a speech imagining the members of the audience to be naked, and thus less scary (although, to be honest, I'm not sure a naked audience would necessarily be less scary than a fully-clothed one);
• someone walking into a building telling themselves that they own it (even though they don't) and thus walking in with more confidence, because they've persuaded themselves that they're on home turf.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

(although, to be honest, I'm not sure a naked audience would necessarily be less scary than a fully-clothed one)

I've often thought that, myself! That concept just doesn't work for me. It's probably my assumption that everybody else in the world feels more comfortable naked than I do. They would be out there, just carrying on as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

 

[HareBrain]

Have you an example, HB, where his change in perspective changes the external world? Without this, it looks like a simple psychological technique such as:

• someone who's nervous about giving a speech imagining the members of the audience to be naked, and thus less scary (although, to be honest, I'm not sure a naked audience would necessarily be less scary than a fully-clothed one);
• someone walking into a building telling themselves that they own it (even though they don't) and thus walking in with more confidence, because they've persuaded themselves that they're on home turf.

Whether the external world is involved or not (it doesn't actually change it, of course) it's pretty similar to your examples, especially the second one.

So it's a pretence strong enough to fool the subconscious, for the purpose of working magic. What would you call that?

 

[Ursa major]

Building one's self-confidence (or self-esteem in certain circumstances) might be the overall phrase for this, but that covers a lot of things. If the term, confidence trick, had not already been used for something else, that would have done. In other circumstances. I'd suggest googling, but that would probably bring up just about every professional and amateur "life coach" on the Web: googling the words, something that builds one's confidence, gives 315 million hits, for instance.


I think the closest analogy may be with the taking of a penalty kick in rugby. I'm sure I've heard it said that some of them imagine the ball flying through the air and bisecting the posts before they've put foot to ball.

But as for a wording, the only one I can think of off-hand is the verb "to inculcate", one of whose meanings is "to induce understanding or a particular sentiment in a person or persons".

So what your character is doing is self-inculcation.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

When I first read the OP I was thinking in terms of self-deception of some sort. But having gone through the posts I think this is wrong. I don't think he's trying to convince himself he's say someone else. He think he's trying to make himself feel like someone else. It's almost an empathy sort of thing.

So with that in mind, from the world of the afterlife, I'd suggest maybe channelling. Taking on the spirit of someone else.

I'd also suggest some of the terms used by the various self help guru's - you know the stuff - you are the alpha wolf! I'm sure they have loads of different junk terms. "Becoming" is one I recall.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Grinnel]

Prefirm.

This is the character confirming a pre-concieved notion.

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks again, all.

This morning, I was writing a scene where a character used this technique, and found myself using "assert", which seemed to me to fit nicely. Looking back, I see that was the Judge's suggestion (though I'm not sure I thought so much of it at the time), so she gets her name in a typeface of her choice on the acknowledgements page.

 

[Ursa major]

We should have realised that assert was a ce... was bound to be the winner.