Phantasmagories

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A series of constantly changing scenes or images that create a dreamlike experience; a collection of bizarre or surreal apparitions often witnessed in imagination; an artistic or literary work that evokes a kaleidoscopic array of visions, often inspired by the fantastical or the eerie
2. A succession of illusory events or figures that spark a sense of wonder or disorientation; a manifestation of fantastical scenes that may stem from creative thought; a narrative or visual expression filled with strange and otherworldly elements designed to captivate the viewer
3. A display of shifting and ephemeral images that can suggest the uncanny or the absurd; an imaginative sequence of phantoms or visions that may elicit both fascination and confusion; a form of artistic representation characterized by the blending of the real and the surreal in dynamic ways

Etymology: "Phantasmagories" is the plural of "phantasmagory," and the singular carries its own surprise: the second half of the word comes from a Greek verb meaning "to speak publicly," the same root that gives us "agora," the marketplace where people gathered to talk. Put together with "phántasma," meaning "ghost" or "apparition," the Greek pieces describe something like public speaking about ghosts. The modern sense comes from France. "Phantasmagorie" was borrowed into French and came to name a type of optical entertainment in which projected images of spectres seemed to drift and loom toward the audience. The shows made the dead appear to walk among the living, which is why the word drifted from a stage trick to any sequence of shifting, dreamlike visions. In English the word keeps that sense of a conjured show. Its plural form, "phantasmagories," usually refers to several such displays or to a series of unsettling images that pile up and dissolve into one another.

Synonyms: fantasies, illusions