'reacting to images'; is that custom or innate ?

[sakoz]

Reacting to images is so common, it's taken for granted, but is it custom or natural? Are we combining/confusing two processes?
1. All creatures are involuntarily/innately reactive/responsive to perceptions of/from environment, a necessity for survival, adaptation, orientation.
2. Humans learn and use language/thought/images. That 'acquisition' makes language a artifact. Our brain 'thinks images'. Is it our brain that believes some of it's images are real, or is it 'ego' that believes some images are real? Is 'believing' a learned custom or innate instinct? Can or do animals "believe"? Is 'believing' a side-effect, adjutant of thought? Can we 'believe' without language/thought? These are not academic questions, but practical psychological well-being, mental health are 'on the line'.
Differentiating perceptions  and believed-thought-images seems not only feasible but crucial for healthy orientation. (Even though the word 'perception' is used to refer to both, thus perpetuating the confusion and not distinguishing the two sources, I'm using the word 'perception' as referring to external input from environment, processed/converted into 'perceptions'.)
"Experience' is reactions to both perceptions and/or to believed thought images. Do 'you' recognize the difference in practice or only in theory?
Is it time to close this topic? Not as long as emotional suffering and dysfunctional behavior is still so RAMPANT through-out  the population.

[sakoz]

Can we bring 'believing' under conscious jurisdiction/sponsorship or settle for 'cybernetic-thermostat-influence?
Consciously try to believe a image is real (not a image already conditioned to cause you to experience some associated emotion).
See? You can't KNOWINGLY deceive yourself; but you can and do so by unwittingly/automatically believing a image is real.