# Hallucinatory pictures **Abstract:** Hallucinatory pictures are yet to be found picture-like artifacts that induce a hallucination of their content that cannot be intuitively explained by a look at the structure of the pictorial vehicle. Different accounts of depiction make different predictions about the possibility that such artifacts be considered as pictures. Some case are presented that pint towards the intuitive acceptability of hallucinatory pictures. A hallucinatory picture has not been discovered or invented yet; this is why you do not find a figure illustrating it here. But are we conceptually prepared for it? In this little thought experiment, it is characterized as follows. On a surface like a canvas or a sheet of paper, some marks are traced that (if I described them to you) would appear meaningless in the sense that nobody would expect them to have a visual semantic whatsoever. But whoever actually looks at the artifact almost instantly hallucinates a visual content – say, a vivid representation of a dog as seen in a particular light, from a particular viewpoint, at a particular distance. How does this come about? We are unable to intuitively find in the features of the picture any grounding for the fact that by looking at it, we have the impression of seeing a dog. This does not look like a photograph of a dog, for instance. Scientists have not uncovered the particular visual pathway that is activated when looking at the artifact and may never uncover them. To make our case a bit more vivid, imagi **Authors:** [[Casado]]