Verified by 
Back around 400 B.C., the Greek philosopher Socrates spent a lot of time talking to friends in the Agora, where Athenians liked to hang out and keep tabs on each other.
The agora was like our modern Facebook, only without electronics.
The big question that Socrates liked to wrestle with was the question of individual identity.
Just as we each have an outward identity that makes us visually recognizable, Socrates posited that we also have an inner, psychic identity, a unique way each of us has of thinking, acting, reacting, solving problems, and dealing with our emotions. Our personal identity is like an inner, psychic fingerprint.
And because our personal identity determines so much of our activity and interpersonal relations, it might seem that most of us would have a clear view of our own personal identities.
But Socrates thought otherwise. His view, reflected in Plato’s dialogues, was that, though our own identity is an intimate part of our lives and determines much of our thinking, it is one of the things we understand least.
So, to all his followers and critics, Socrates offered his most famous dictum: “Know thyself.”
Socrates believed that people could not live truly successful, effective, moral lives until they could first understand themselves.
Fade out, and fade in two thousand years later. Our human species has undergone several evolutions, revolutions, and reformations in the interim, but not much has changed. We’re still basically the same folks we were before, and we still don’t know much about ourselves.
So, if Socrates were miraculously around today, he might well wend his way over to Facebook, our modern electronic Agora, and nudge us once again with his original dictum: Know thyself!
But “knowing ourselves” in today’s complicated world might be even more difficult than it was in the past. Here are four factors that greatly affect our ability to know ourselves:
1. The Internet
The internet is an overwhelmingly visual medium. We see a dazzling parade of celebrities and influencers whose job is to make their lives, lifestyles, and products irresistible to us. We are constantly inundated by carefully curated visions that draw us like helpless iron filings into the magnetic orbit of desire.
These images conjure up identities that many of us hunger to duplicate in our own lives. But these are not our true identities!
2. Consumerism and Over-Commercialization
Everybody has a stake in having us be who they want us to be.
Companies and organizations all have a big financial stake in the identity decisions we make. They all want us to make identity decisions that lead us to buy their products to show people how powerful and successful we are.
3. Secondary Dream Time
It takes a special kind of time to discern the psychic imprint that forms your unique personal identity. I call it "Secondary Dream Time."
Primary Dream Time is, of course, the time when we’re asleep. In Secondary Dream Time, we are awake, but it is a loose, unfocused time, characterized by non-analytical, associative thinking. A time for interior listening, maybe even daydreaming.
Secondary Dream Time most often occurs at “in-between” times when we are standing in line at the grocery store or waiting at the doctor’s office. Loose times, un-programmed times, when our minds are open and receptive.
These “in-between” times may seem as though they’re wasted times, but in reality, they are one of our most valuable personal resources. They constitute Secondary Dream Time, the loose time of Socratic listening when the dim outlines of our personal identity can bubble up into our consciousness.
4. The Great Danger of Losing Secondary Dream Time
We live in a success-driven culture where people feel they need to make active use of every second in order to “meet their goals.”
So now, instead of waiting in line at the grocery store in quiet contemplation, people are actively focused on their smartphones, hurriedly poking out replies to emails they’ve just received while they were shopping in the produce department.
The importance of this kind of loose time has been vastly downgraded in our culture because it’s not actively productive.
But Secondary Dream Time is a lot like the rainforest. Just because we may not be drilling for oil in the rainforest doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. The rainforest is immensely valuable. It is regenerative. It restores our world. It holds our future.
Secondary Dream Time is our own personal, psychic rainforest.
What happens if we don‘t follow Socrates's dictum to “Know thyself?” Socrates doesn’t talk about specific consequences for people who fail to know themselves, but I believe I have seen one that is quite widespread. It is what I call Inauthentic Identity.
I have been a mediator for 20 years, and I have seen many cases where the conflict arises from, or is intensified by, one of the parties assuming an Inauthentic Identity.
In our contemporary, success-driven society, Inauthentic Identity is especially common. More and more people are drawn to personas where they seem more successful, powerful, and well-connected than they really are. It is aspirational.
The problem with trying to assume an identity that conflicts with your own authentic identity is that you don’t really know the moves. You’re faking it at some basic level. You don’t just have imposter syndrome. You are an imposter!
Living with an Inauthentic Identity causes a great deal of anxiety and creates many relationship conflicts. That’s how I became aware of it in my mediation cases.
So, how can you avoid having an Inauthentic Identity? Two things:
- First, unhook yourself from your smartphone, and spend plenty of time in Secondary Dream Time. Luxuriate in your own personal, psychic rainforest!
- Second, take a tip from our old pal Socrates: Know thyself!
David Evans © 2019
