Illusion

il·lu·sion
Pronunciation: \i-lü-zhen\
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin illusion-, illusio.
a (1): a misleading image presented to the vision (2): something that deceives or misleads intellectually b (1): perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience".
---Joan Didion, The White Album