Neurofictives: The Stories That Organise Us
Human beings don’t just inhabit the world — we live within stories about it. These stories influence what we expect, how we interpret experiences, what we value, and how we see ourselves. In Biogenics, these profound, internalised narratives are called neurofictives.
Neurofictives aren’t just beliefs or opinions. They are biologically rooted, emotionally intense, culturally amplified mental frameworks. They’re how the mind constructs meaning—not as mere abstraction, but as a tool for coherence, motivation, and adaptation. They are the stories that organise, produce, and correct us. And they are often invisible to the people experiencing them.
What Are Neurofictives?
A neurofictive is a belief system embedded in the nervous system. The term combines neuro, meaning rooted in the architecture of the brain and body, with fictive, meaning constructed — a story, not a fact. These aren’t random ideas. They are functional narratives — emotionally charged, culturally reinforced, and biologically stabilised — that shape how a person interprets reality.
They don’t just sit in the mind. They structure it.
A neurofictive is not a single belief (“I think X”), but a recursive inner mythology — a story that organises identity, morality, threat perception, and relational expectations.
Common examples might include:
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“I must earn love.”
“The world is dangerous.”
“My role is to fix others.”
These aren’t always conscious. They operate like internal operating systems — guiding perception, regulating emotion, allocating attention — often without us realising.
Biogenically, neurofictives are not abstractions. They are functional architectures, directing the flow of energy and interpretation in a living system. Think of them as DNA for meaning — encoding behavioural and emotional patterns just as genetic code encodes proteins. They guide the mind in constructing its reality.
Four Core Properties
Narrative: Neurofictives organise life as story — with heroes, rules, causality, and meaning.
Embodied: They live not just in thought, but in sensation, posture, tone, and physiology.
Recursive: They reinforce themselves. Once in place, they filter perception to confirm their own logic.
Regulative: They manage thresholds of emotion, decision, and behaviour — like thermostats for meaning.
They’re not always verbal. But they’re always active.
The Biogenic Roles of Neurofictives
Neurofictives express all three functions of the Biotropic Triad:
Self-Organisation (SO): They create internal coherence — organising identity, emotion, and worldview. Like gyroscopes, they stabilise us through flux.
Self-Production (SP): They energise motivation, morality, and legacy. They tell us who we are, what matters, and why it’s worth trying.
Self-Correction (SC): When life contradicts a story, we either revise the story — or fracture. Neurofictives adapt (or resist adaptation) in response to trauma, growth, or new insight.
Without them, we fragment. But with them, we can also get stuck.
Where They Come From
Neurofictives don’t arrive fully formed. They emerge through:
Biology: Temperament, sensitivity, and neuroarchitecture influence which stories “stick.”
Attachment: Early experiences encode beliefs about trust, worth, and autonomy.
Culture: Larger myths — about success, gender, love, justice — offer templates we inherit or resist.
Emotion and Memory: Intense experiences anchor narratives more deeply than reason.
Over time, small interpretive habits develop into identity-shaping beliefs. A child who feels neglected may not just think “no one’s here for me,” but adopt a lifelong neurofictive: “I must not need anyone.”
Why They Matter
Neurofictives regulate meaning — and meaning regulates life. They:
Direct emotional reactions.
Influence decisions and goals.
Shape how we process trauma and joy.
Determine how much change we’ll allow.
Changing them isn’t a matter of logic. It takes time, trust, and a different story that feels safer, truer, or more useful.
Distinctions: Not Schemas, Priors, or Ideologies
While neurofictives resemble other cognitive constructs, they are distinct:
Schemas categorise; neurofictives assign meaning.
Bayesian priors predict events; neurofictives explain why events matter.
Ideologies are collective systems; neurofictives are personal and embodied, even if culturally shaped.
They’re not easily edited by new information. They update like belief ecosystems — slowly, with care.
Neurofictives in Society
Shared neurofictives form the backbone of communities:
“Our nation is chosen.”
“Hard work guarantees success.”
“We must protect tradition.”
These stories provide cohesion. But they can also polarise, fossilise, or be manipulated. Propaganda, marketing, and AI-driven platforms increasingly target the neurofictive layer — not just behaviour, but belief identity.
This raises ethical questions. Who gets to shape the stories we live by? And how do we reclaim authorship?
Editing the Story
Neurofictives can be rewritten — but not by willpower alone. Revision requires:
Safety: The nervous system must allow a new interpretation.
Relationship: Change often comes through others, not in isolation.
Reflection: Seeing the story for what it is — and imagining alternatives.
Therapy, art, ritual, dialogue, and cultural evolution are all sites of neurofictive revision. The goal isn’t truth, but coherence — to construct stories that help us adapt, connect, and persist.