Is Reality Even Real? Part 2 | Self-Deception, Consciousness & Objective Truth

If your perception isn't objective...How do you know what's actually real?

In Part 2 of this Decoded series, Elisabeth McKay explores one of the most unsettling questions in neuroscience and psychology: How does self-deception form, and why does it feel indistinguishable from truth?

Building on the foundation established in Part 1, this episode examines how attention, memory, emotional salience, prediction, and past experiences shape the reality you experience every day. Elisabeth explains why two people can experience the same event and leave with completely different conclusions—and why certainty itself may be one of the brain's greatest illusions.

In this episode:

Why attention determines your experience of reality

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) explained

How the salience network decides what matters

Why memory is reconstructed—not replayed

Narrative formation and emotional meaning

Why relationships break down over interpretation

Trauma, prediction, and self-fulfilling prophecies

The psychology of self-deception