Dealing with Inner Reactions

 Inner reactions seem to be triggers to personal judgments about oneself. For example, if I am hearing about another person's conflicts, I am in no way obligated to fall into the conflict itself. However, it is because I am over-identified with the people portrayed in the conflict that I often would get emotionally reacted by it.
   The example I am thinking about lately is that of a movie. When I am really drawn into the characters in the story, I forget that what I am seeing are only images arising on a screen. By reflecting on what supports the images or what is behind the images, I have a better chance of not getting so drawn or identified with these actors or characters in the drama. I can see the energies and the stories, but the characters are less "real" than I might initially make them out to be. But this does, I'm afraid, require a certain amount of spiritual practice, for which I am constantly in need of reminders.
     Even when a person is drawn into the movie and the emotions, do they necessarily need to see the movie as real? I think that's the interesting question, because it suggests that even when there are mental kleshas or reactions, there are ways of seeing even these reactions as phenomena which one is actively creating in a sense. And one can even "play" all the individual characters as well, as though one were all the pieces on the chess board. It's similar to what Gestalt therapists have described: there are so many personalities in tension with each other but all of them are played out in the same field. Why not give them free play, but allowing oneself the humor to just observe the players, instead of getting too involved in the actors?