---
id: sfoc-states-ontological-shock
title: "Ontological Shock"
primary_class: states
primary_domain: memory-identity
secondary_domains: [body-evolution, mind-consciousness]
material_modes: [experiential-report, original-synthesis]
version: 1.0.0
---

# Ontological Shock

> **the broken frame.** Information or experience making the previous model of reality impossible to maintain.

## Origin

The card begins with a bounded origin claim: reports of lived experience and the vocabularies used to make those reports shareable. Community usage, popular remix, and divinatory meaning are added only after that boundary. Because the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation, provenance work must compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.

## What It Is

Information or experience making the previous model of reality impossible to maintain. In the Oracle it is classified as States & Experiences, while its evidence layers determine how literal, historical, fictional, experiential, or symbolic a particular interpretation may be.

## Cultural History

Ontological Shock did not keep one meaning while its setting changed. Its reception shows how memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others. At collective scale, the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information affects testimony, belonging, stigma, care, and the ability to coordinate reality; this matters because memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.

## Claim and Evidence Layers

  ### literal-and-empirical

- **Claim layer:** literal-and-empirical
- **Material context:** experiential-report
- **Evidence state:** experiential-only
- **Summary:** Ontological Shock has an experiential-only literal or empirical layer. That designation applies only to the bounded claims supported by the listed sources.
- **Sources:** No external source assigned; editorial synthesis only.

### cultural-and-historical

- **Claim layer:** cultural-and-historical
- **Material context:** experiential-report, original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** unverified
- **Summary:** Ontological Shock has a class-level contextual source but still lacks a concept-specific external source in this release. Its cultural history is an editorial research lead, not a completed provenance claim.
- **Sources:** No external source assigned; editorial synthesis only.

### symbolic-and-divinatory

- **Claim layer:** symbolic-and-divinatory
- **Material context:** original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** symbolic
- **Summary:** The Oracle uses Ontological Shock as a reflective symbol, never as proof that its literal or causal claims are true.
- **Sources:** original-synthesis

## Oracle

- **Essence:** Information or experience making the previous model of reality impossible to maintain.
- **Archetype:** the broken frame
- **Gift:** capacity for paradigm change.
- **Shadow:** destabilization without grounding or integration.
- **Guidance:** Do not ask Ontological Shock to solve every scale at once within continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together. Work at the nearest point where consent and feedback are possible while the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation. Use this guidance where the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation; keep visible that memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.
- **Healing / integration:** Draft a consent protocol for engaging Ontological Shock: scope, information, refusal, review, revocation, and care after participation. Review the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information through continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together, remembering that the card changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Question:** What remains reliable while the model is rebuilt?

## Meanings

### Psychological

The psychological question in Ontological Shock is not whether the symbol feels true, but what it does to attention, relationship, and available action. A grounded check for the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information is to compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision, especially where the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.

### Social

Ontological Shock can make a dispersed experience discussable. It becomes dangerous when shared vocabulary closes the door on revision or exit. In shared life, the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information affects testimony, belonging, stigma, care, and the ability to coordinate reality. Test that specific the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information pattern by asking people to compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.

### Spiritual

As sacred metaphor, Ontological Shock asks how memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others. It should not erase living tradition while its symbolic role changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation. In symbolic practice, the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information can be interpreted as opening, ordeal, initiation, illusion, or integration; keep in view that memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.

### Technological

As infrastructure, Ontological Shock would require materials, energy, labor, maintenance, governance, and disposal. The imagined capability must carry those dependencies. When the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information becomes a capability, it may be measured, induced, mediated, recorded, or misclassified by tools. Verify the implementation of the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information by asking participants to compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.

### Political

Politically, Ontological Shock raises questions about credibility, autonomy, accommodation, and coercive interpretation. Follow authority, benefit, exposure to harm, refusal, remedy, and control of the official record. When the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information becomes governance, it raises questions about credibility, autonomy, accommodation, and coercive interpretation. Make authority over the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information answerable by requiring decision-makers to compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.

## Divination

- **Gift state:** Ontological Shock can now become an instrument rather than an identity. Use it to compare, clarify, connect, or repair. The capacity within the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information is strongest when identity can continue without forcing every gap into a finished story, even as the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Shadow state:** Ontological Shock may be concentrating hidden costs in people who did not choose the promise. Follow burden before celebrating capability. To keep the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information from escalating, compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision, because the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Threshold state:** When Ontological Shock surfaces, an image, system, or claim may be concentrating too much meaning. Widen the frame before acting. Operationally, the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation; the reader should compare recollection with records, other witnesses, missing intervals, and the cost of revision.
- **Practical move:** Draft a consent protocol for engaging Ontological Shock: scope, information, refusal, review, revocation, and care after participation. Review the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information through continuity, forgetting, archives, testimony, and the stories that hold a self together, remembering that the card changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.

## Game and Story Function

- condition
- perception-filter
- consequence

**Story seed:** Someone uses Ontological Shock to explain a private wound, while an institution uses it to justify public control. One source can disrupt both stories. The world of the story must show how the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation and why memory can preserve personhood while also being edited, inherited, contested, or supplied by others.

## Relationships

- edge--assessed-through-shared-source-lens--sfoc-states-existential-dread--sfoc-states-ontological-shock
- edge--develops-into--sfoc-programs-catastrophic-disclosure--sfoc-states-ontological-shock
- edge--develops-into--sfoc-states-ontological-shock--sfoc-events-contact-integration
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-states-noospheric-awareness--sfoc-states-ontological-shock
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-states-ontological-shock--sfoc-states-out-of-body-experience
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-beings-android--sfoc-states-ontological-shock
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-beings-hive-mind--sfoc-states-ontological-shock
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-states-ontological-shock--sfoc-technologies-mind-upload

## Visual Direction

Ontological Shock visualized as the ontological motif meeting a world-model failing under new information: a layered interior halo expressing a condition without diagnosing or literalizing a person. The art must be original, text-free, square, rounded-corner enamel with one immediately legible silhouette.

## Safety and Integration

Flags: mental-health-and-reality-testing, lived-experience-without-causal-certification. Invite reflection and source comparison; do not diagnose, recruit, threaten, harass, or certify extraordinary claims.

## Sources and Research Notes

- Source IDs: iep-jung, original-synthesis
- Research note: Which earliest reliable source fixes the modern meaning of Ontological Shock? Which communities use Ontological Shock differently, and what changes across those contexts? What evidence would distinguish the leading literal explanations associated with Ontological Shock?
