Chapter 1: The Deal for Connection

“Humans live in two realities at once. Like all other living things, we live in the reality of ‘survival’ – food, shelter and procreation. But we spend most of our mental time living in a second one: the ‘story realm.’”

Chapter 2: Umwelt

“Our brains can only pick up that which is essential to our human experience of consciousness. We can only see a narrow band of reality – and that’s referred to as our particular umwelt.”

Chapter 3: Superorganism

“The core function of storytelling is to create a sense of shared reality. Humans are these highly cooperative apes – we’re almost part ape, part ant. Story is a persuasive technology that sucks individual minds into it and persuades them to become a functional member of a human group.”