ABSTRACT. Hallucinations are a form of the human imagination that is generated by an utterly complex cognitive process, being paradoxically a (rich or poor) spring of progress (science, technology, art). Imagination is thus susceptible of belonging to the domain of either creativity or psychopathology, hallucinations being a frontier between health and illness, between a normal reality, shared with the many, and another one, an abnormal reality, that is uniquely accesible only to the individual person.

Keywords: reality; imagination; hallucination; perception; representation; psychopathology