Hallucinating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Experiencing vivid sensory events that arise without external stimuli
2. Having sensory experiences that occur without any real external cause and are often not shared by others
3. Sensing things that are not present in the environment, often involving seeing, hearing, or feeling things falsely

Etymology: The Latin verb "ālūcinor" meant "to wander in mind" or "to dream," and it was a word that Romans used with a fairly loose sense, describing confused or idle thinking rather than anything medical. Its past participle, "hallūcinātus," passed into English in 1604, arriving with the sense of a mind wandering away from reality. The verb's ending comes from the Latin "-ate" suffix, which English borrowed widely to form verbs from Latin roots. The surprising part is that the word was used for a long time mostly for error or foolish talk rather than perception. Its move toward describing false sensory experience, seeing or hearing things with no outside source, came later, as English writers began using it in a more clinical sense.

Synonyms: dreaming, imagining

Antonyms: perceiving, realizing