The inner and outer worlds of an individual come together in psychic images, giving the person a vital sense of a living connection to both worlds. "Fantasy it was and ever is which fashions the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of subject and object". The experience of reality is a product of the psyche's capacity to image. It is not an external being (god, ideal forms, or matter), but, rather, the essence of being human. Subjectively, reality is experienced as out there, because its originary principle is located in the beyond, transcendent to the ego's subjectivity. With this ontological shift, mental image ceases to be viewed as a copy, or a copy of a copy, and now assumes . . . the role of ultimate origin and creator of meaning and of our sense of existence and reality.