Thus the reasoning of a person living in a "second reality" may be self-consistent to him but in truth - woefully incomplete, a fantasy and flat wrong.
If people were like oysters then "second realities" would be understandable. How could an oyster be expected to know what is on the other side of the island much less what is above the water?
But with people "second realities" are rarely a matter of physical handicaps. Instead, they usually suffer from either mental illness (e.g. he thinks he is Napoleon) or more likely, spiritual illness of self-will run awry:
I a real sense people ARE like Oysters.. (good metaphor)..
Some with a pearl of great price growing in them at great painful cost..
Not all but some.. Until they are "born again"(metaphorically) they remain in their own second reality.. Their "spirits" need to be released.. from the shell of self protection.. into first reality (John ch 10)..
Second reality is indeed a real thing.. a virtual shell of protection.. from reality.. first reality.. I think there is a whole sermon imbedded in your oyster metaphor.. and very scriptual too.. How like an Oyster in an oyster bed are the unregenerate souls of humans.. I could expand the thought with Scallops but most would not know the difference between an Oyster and a Scallop.. life style wise..
Thus the reasoning of a person living in a "second reality" may be self-consistent to him but in truth - woefully incomplete, a fantasy and flat wrong.
If people were like oysters then "second realities" would be understandable. How could an oyster be expected to know what is on the other side of the island much less what is above the water?
Yet human beings are not "oysters." We are called to greater things....
Dearest sister in Christ, what a brilliant description of the phenomenon of the "second reality" — and its main implication (i.e., the "oyster scenario")! Thank you oh so very much!
The main problem with second realities is the nasty habit they have of becoming "socially effective." We wouldn't mind so much (perhaps) if a person chooses to "will himself" out of the common reality by opting for such reduced schemes of it, were it not for the fact that "no man is an island" (i.e., "no man is an oyster"). That is to say, such personal acts have wider social ramifications.
Second realities are alternative realities. People might ask: Alternative to what? Basically the answer to that question is: alternative to key common understandings of humankind facing their existential contingency and mortality as men, as developed over several millennia, regarding the nature of the world and man's place in it.
Perhaps the most acute example of a second reality we could give would be Marxism. Yet "isms" in general are always suspect. Common with Marxism, all "isms" finally seem to reduce to problems/opportunities of transfers of power, influence, and authority in society. Thus any second reality is instantly "at war" with First reality at the individual and social levels.
But how to describe "First reality?" Judeo-Christian theology (though not Islam), and classical philosophy as well, both recognize that First reality is constituted as a great hierarchy of being: God–Man–world–society. That is of four participants constantly mutually engaged with each other in a dynamic world process evolving in time, yet always evolving against and within the "background" of a divine order given as Logos (Christianity), or as Nous (Plato et al.).
Science itself arose on this millennial tradition, which also happens to be the foundation of Western — and thus, of American — culture.
At this point, one wants to probe the psychology of the person who finds a second reality attractive in the first place.
On my view, such ready acceptance depends on the sheer refusal to engage reality as it is. There is too much uncertainly, too much pain, too much contingency in the human condition; and then we die. Reality itself seems to be basically "unfair" on the view of the modern Lotus Eater, who has utopian plans to rectify the deficiencies of the original creation, and would do so, if only he can gain sufficient power and influence....
You noted the association between second reality and spiritual disorder. This recognition has a heritage in Plato, who called this spiritual disease nosos; in Aristotle, it was called nosemos; and in Cicero, aspernatio rationalis, or the "refusal to apperceive reality" (which MHGinTN has felicitously termed, "the absolute refusal to engage the patently obvious." Bravo and kudos, MHGinTN! That's "spot-on!")
Sigh.... Well, that seems to be where we're all AT, at the moment. Just take a look at the Obama campaign for a "school" in the ins-and-outs of the "second reality business".... If you're paying attention, you'll already have noted how very often this campaign sacrifices truthful statements to political expediency.... "Isms" must work that way; for they are cut off from foundational Reality in the first place; and they always have their ambitions to realize.... Their claim that "the end justifies the means" gives them an ersatz legitimacy that justifies literally anything they may choose to undertake.
As for me, I think it's a really bad idea to give the keys to the asylum to the lunatics residing within. Yet it seems that today, many others don't see this as a deeply dangerous problem....
Anyhoot, thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your absolutely splendid essay/post!