WHY DO PEOPLE CRAVE NARRATIVE?

I just got bigtime distracted when I searched Google Images for the word narrative... there's my old 'pal' (not really, just a fan) Laurie Anderson on why we crave narrative. Yeah, what did she say? And why the old pic of her? I wonder what life with Lou Reed (and, duh, the years) have done to her? Nevertheless, why DO we crave narrative? Um, anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller? OK. Old joke.
Here's my shot:
We crave narrative because (apologies to my good friends who doubt evolution) it's part of our monkey/caveman heritage. It's something that HELPS OUR BRAINS cope with the immensity of what they've stumbled upon (or been graced with), i.e. consciousness. Consciousness is darn scary. That thing died and we're eating it. Gramma died and we buried her. Why didn't we eat her? When is that (is it?) going to happen to me? And will they eat me? All that kind of thinking. It's tough.
Narrative, i.e. storytelling, says sit down, let go of some small but significant part of your SELF CONSCIOUSNESS and project it (it's easy, automatic) onto the Characters in the Story. It doesn't so much matter what happens in the story, though clearly some are better (i.e. help more) than others and thus become myths, verbal poetry, eventually novels and films. But it's essentially a pretty primitive thing. It sort of 'hurts' to be conscious and we do a lot of things (drugs, narrative, gods, God) to give ourselves distraction, etc. so it won't hurt so much. Negative?
I don't think so.
Realistic.
(More later)