Mind reading is not possible. Knowing our own minds can be challenging enough. For us to know the mind of someone else would be impossible. And it's the same for narcissists. They cannot read your mind. But they do have a mode of behaviour where they believe that they can read your mind. It may even feel as though they are successfully reading your mind, but they're not. And I am going to explain how they do it and why they do it in this video. Mind reading is not possible, it is not real. What is real is the psychological concept of empathic accuracy. This is the ability to accurately identify how someone is thinking or feeling by reading cues such as their words, emotions and body language. Most people have this ability, but narcissists often struggle to read other people's emotions. They have a lack of empathy. This makes it very difficult for them to experience any empathic accuracy. Having a sense of what a person is thinking or feeling can help to avoid common miscommunications. It can help to strengthen your relationships with other people.
Narcissists don't have this ability and this is why we may often experience miscommunications with them. They have limited or no affective empathy. They are unable to share an emotional reaction is response to another person's emotions. This gives them a lower possibility of experiencing guilt or shame. But they do have the ability to figure out the emotional states of other people, without feeling what they are feeling. This is known as cognitive empathy. Narcissists often have high levels of cognitive empathy and limited or no affective empathy. They have difficulty feeling what the other person is feeling, but they can figure out your emotional state. Your emotional state can often give clues about what you are thinking in that moment. They can also read facial expressions and body language, just as anyone else can. But narcissists are very predatory, they are determined to figure out what their prey is thinking or feeling.
They are determined to find a vulnerability or weakness within their prey, which they can then use to extract fuel or narcissistic supply. This is something they have practiced their entire lives. Reading their target's mind, identifying their thoughts and feelings. Strategising how they are going to break them down and use them to regulate their emotional state or extract resources from them. They had to perfect their craft of manipulation to survive amongst those who have perfected their qualities and abilities. The narcissist never took the time to work on their qualities or abilities, so they know that they are not going to be able to compete if they play fair. That's why they cheat, lie and steal. They already expect to lose. So they focus more on their craft of manipulation. Identifying where people are in the mind, identifying their deficiencies or vulnerabilities and then using them to their advantage. Using them to exploit the target. The narcissist does this for their own emotional survival. They use other people to regulate their emotions or boost their self esteem. Extract resources. This is why they have high levels of cognitive empathy. It is a survival mechanism, a way of protecting themselves from being hurt by other people. This is why they do everything that they do, it is all about emotional survival. They cannot read your mind, but they believe that they can. They read your facial expressions and body language, listen to the tone of your voice.
This is all a part of their survivial mechanism, it's about emotional survival. If they can identify where you are in the mind or how you are feeling, it can help them to regulate their emotions or boost their self-esteem. Their brains have adapted to their need for emotional regulation or narcissistic supply, where it has now become second nature for them to home in on their target's facial expressions, body language or the tone of their voice. This is something that they have been practicing their entire lives. They were unable to look within themselves to regulate their emotions as that would produce shame and shame is very painful for them. Their neural circuitry adapted to their environment during their childhood when they felt as though they were worthless or insignificant. Their neural circuitry is designed in a way where they now look for cues in a person's facial expressions, body language or tone of voice. They have to identify how that person is feeling to then regulate their own emotional state. If their target is feeling miserable, hurt or depressed, it instantly makes the narcissist feel alive and happy. Without this ability to detect how their target might be thinking or feeling, they would be unable to regulate their emotional state. So this is a necessary survival mechanism for the narcissist and it is designed for emotional survival. This is something that most likely developed during their childhood, as an adaptation to the hostile environment.
They are dependent on other people to regulate their emotions, by hurting them or feeding off their pain. So their brains most likely adapted to this, by lowering their affective empathy and increasing their cognitive empathy. It is the most efficient way for them to regulate their emotional state, even if it does destroy everyone who tries to get close to them. The narcissist cannot read your mind directly, this is not possible.
They can only make an estimated guess at what you might be thinking or feeling in that moment, by reading into your facial expressions, body language or tone of voice. Anyone is capable of doing this. But of course, as narcissists have high levels of cognitive empathy, it is second nature for them. They also have limited or no affective empathy, which means that they don't feel your pain or emotional distress. This makes it easier for them to feed off your pain and regulate their emotional state, without reflecting on their feelings of guilt or shame.
The narcissist can often become addicted to the high that this provides. Narcissistic supply is often referred to as their drug of choice. Narcissists do generally develop an obsession with obtaining narcissistic supply, so naturally they will develop an obsession with trying to read their target's mind. Due to their exaggerated sense of their own abilities or accomplishments, they will actually believe that they can read the target's mind. This can create all kinds of problems, as the narcissist may generate all kinds of distorted thought patterns which they will then assign to their target. This is why their smear campaigns can seem so shocking and unexpected. They spread rumours about you, things that you can't even imagine. There is a lot going on in their minds that you have no knowledge or awareness of. They are constantly generating these distorted thought patterns and beliefs about what you might be thinking and then assigning them to you. Due to their exaggerated sense of their own abilities or accomplishments, they really believe that their distorted thought patterns and beliefs are truth. This is why you might have arguments or disagreements where no matter what you say to them or no matter how much evidence you have, or how much you try to prove your point, it will never get through to them. In their minds you are against them and you have an ulterior in their minds. And there is nothing that you can say or do that will convince them otherwise. Because they really believe that whatever estimated guess they have determined from reading your social cues is the truth. This is the danger of the exaggerated sense of their own abilities and accomplishments. Once they get something set in their minds about you, or about how you feel about them, or what you are plotting to do to them, there's no swaying them. They have this sense of pride and arrogance where if they believe something, it must be true. Regardless of any points you are making or any evidence you may have. They believe that their mind reading skills are superior to anything factual or grounded in logic and reasoning. Another reason why narcissists develop this obsession with trying to read your mind is because they want attention. They want to feel as though they are something significant. They want to feel as though they exist. When they are trying to read your mind, they are trying to use your mind to validate them. If they cannot extract any fuel the regular way, by trying to impress you or devaluing you and you are not displaying any clear signs of interest or distress. They will try to force their supply out of your mind.
They will read into your facial expressions, body language and tone of voice and try to identify if you approve of them or if you find them interesting. If they are hurting you, they will try to read into closed body language or any signs of pain in your voice. This is all that goes on in their minds. They want to be admired and respected. They want to be seen as something significant or meaningful to you. If they can't do that by impressing you, they will hurt you and extract negative supply instead. Narcissists think like they are God. They are believe that they are the all-knowing, the all-seeing. And they do whatever possible to make this a reality. They think they know everything they need to know about you. They think they've got you all figured out. What they don't realise or understand is that even the top psychologists in the world would not be able to figure you out. They can only give theories. Systems of ideas that are intended to explain something, which are based on general principles independent of yourself. And even the disorders which are based on general principles are often misdiagnosed. But even though many psychologists are humble and they understand their limitations, they understand that they are not going to figure everything out, narcissists are very arrogant. They believe that they've figured you out, they've figured everything out. Just by reading your social cues. This is the danger and the threat that is pose by one having an exaggerated sense of their own importance or abilities. They believe that they can know everything and that they can figure everything out. They believe that they know you better than you know yourself. And they will often convey this to you. They will often convey the feeling or belief that they know you better than you know yourself. The problem with this audacious and arrogant belief is that their beliefs about what you are thinking are often created in their minds, before you even commit the act that would confirm their beliefs. They assign motives or reasons for you doing something. Motives or reasons that fit their narrative. They cannot read your mind, but because they have already made up their minds about what you are thinking, any act that you commit is going to reinforce their predetermined beliefs. Any act that doesn't reinforce their predetermined beliefs or doesn't fall in line with what they believe to be true will be ignored. This is how narcissistic abuse often erases it's victims at a core level.
It creates doubt, uncertainty. And makes them more susceptible to the manipulation, more suggestible to the narcissist's predetermined beliefs about them. It changes their beliefs about themselves, other people and the world around them. It causes them to act in ways that are less like them and more like their abuser. They may even incite you to commit certain acts. They will push and provoke you until you finally cave in. Until you finally submit under their pressure. And then that will only reinforce their predetermined beliefs even more. But they're not going to look at everything they did to get you to that point. Remember narcissists don't self reflect and they don't take responsibility for their actions. All they are going to see is your actions and they are going to believe that they read your mind all along.