vivid hallucination

   A term used to denote a* visual hallucination that stands out because of its brightness, vivacity, or liveliness. As noted by the American philosopher C. Wade Savage, in this particular context the somewhat ambiguous adjective 'vivid' tends to be used in at least four different ways. It can mean bright or saturated (in the sense of a brightly coloured hallucination or one executed in saturated colours), it can mean life-like (as in a hallucinated object or person that is phenomenolog-ically indistinguishable from an actual object or person), it can mean 'projected' (i.e. as if actually present in extracorporeal space), and it can mean compelling (in the sense that the hallucination in question compels the affected individual of its true nature). In the latter case, hallucinations are also said to have a high degree of * xenopathy. The German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) considers vividness a particularly important feature of hallucinations, especially in comparison with the lack of vividness that is deemed characteristic of * pseudohallucinations. It should be noted that hallucinations can indeed be as vivid as regular sense perceptions and that they can even surpass them in their degree of vividness, as in individuals with poor visual acuity who may perceive sharply focused hallucinated images against a blurred background.

   References

   Jaspers, K. (1963). Zur Analyse der Trugwahrnehmungen (Leibhaftigkeit und Realitätsurteil). In: Gesammelte Schriften zur Psychopathologie. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Savage, C.W. (1975). The continuity of perceptual and cognitive experiences.In: Hallucinations. Behavior, experience, and theory.Edited by Siegel, R.K., West, L.J. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.