as in surreal
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Recent Examples of hallucinatory
The script leans heavily on exposition — internal monologues, disembodied intercom voices, and hallucinatory flashbacks — to communicate lore that might have resonated more powerfully through action or environment.
—
Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 29 Jan. 2026
Its first big splash came at the Venice Film Festival in 2023 with AGGRO DR1FT, an 80-minute, Travis Scott–co-starring fever dream shot entirely through thermal lenses and built to feel less like a movie than a game-like, hallucinatory experience.
—Patrick Brzeski, HollywoodReporter, 15 Jan. 2026
Experimental musician Delia Beatriz pays homage to Mexican cumbia rebajada using digital processing to manipulate archival recordings into fields of warped texture and hallucinatory drone.
—Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 7 Jan. 2026
One scene involves Varang poisoning Quaritch with a mysterious hallucinatory drug that compels him to tell the truth about his motivations.
—Jack Smart, PEOPLE, 20 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hallucinatory
Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 29 Jan. 2026
Its first big splash came at the Venice Film Festival in 2023 with AGGRO DR1FT, an 80-minute, Travis Scott–co-starring fever dream shot entirely through thermal lenses and built to feel less like a movie than a game-like, hallucinatory experience.
—Patrick Brzeski, HollywoodReporter, 15 Jan. 2026
Experimental musician Delia Beatriz pays homage to Mexican cumbia rebajada using digital processing to manipulate archival recordings into fields of warped texture and hallucinatory drone.
—Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 7 Jan. 2026
One scene involves Varang poisoning Quaritch with a mysterious hallucinatory drug that compels him to tell the truth about his motivations.
—Jack Smart, PEOPLE, 20 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hallucinatory
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hallucinatory
Adjective
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This is the sort of movie that thinks nothing of dropping in a human-centipede roundabout of bootlicking and the surreal sight of a PR guru’s head turning into a video screen.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
28 Mar. 2026
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The immersive-entertainment company’s alien theme fits well within the surreal sculptures at its Denver outpost as designers and models take the stage at its Perplexiplex venue for a night of beautiful and bizarre creations.—
John Wenzel,
Denver Post,
26 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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The action is punctuated by flash-frame collages that bring earlier and later observations together in a tumble of associations and hint at the drama’s mystical, phantasmagorical essence.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
6 Feb. 2026
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Today, the public district collection comprises some 35 large-scale murals, sculptures and installations, including the phantasmagoric exterior of its Museum Garage.—
Andres Viglucci,
Miami Herald,
30 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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Physicists treat the volume of the black hole as illusory, like a hologram.—
Shalma Wegsman,
Quanta Magazine,
30 Mar. 2026
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If the recent leftward shift is sustained, or the earlier shift to the right was illusory, the effects on the politics of 2026 could be large, potentially putting control of Congress in the hands of Latino voters.—
Gary M. Segura,
The Conversation,
23 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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This isn’t callousness or delusive optimism but, rather, a rebellion against the suffocating expectation that the elderly have foreclosed the possibility of joy.—
Hillary Kelly,
The New Yorker,
21 Feb. 2024
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To separate art from its historical framework is futile, and to reject it in an effort to censor past violence is a delusive act of virtue signaling.—
WSJ,
WSJ,
5 July 2022
Adjective
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Bartle replied that the two Kansas Cities were really one big city, separated only by an imaginary state line.—
Elijah Winkler,
Kansas City Star,
29 Mar. 2026
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In the Williams-Paisley household, even an imaginary man can cause a marital kerfuffle.—
Bryan West,
USA Today,
25 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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The study found that a technological flaw already tied to some high-profile cases of delusional and suicidal behavior in vulnerable populations is also pervasive across a wide range of people’s interactions with chatbots.—
Matt O'Brien,
Fortune,
29 Mar. 2026
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That’s perhaps for the best, given the ongoing discussions surrounding AI psychosis, a troubling trend that has caused an alarming wave of mental health crises as the tech coaxes some users into spirals of paranoid and delusional behavior.—
Victor Tangermann,
Futurism,
26 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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One requires election records to be maintained for 22 months, while the other prohibits procuring, casting or tabulating false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
27 Mar. 2026
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Rogen, who in the show plays fictitious studio head Matt Remick, briefly attended the festival in September to do research.—
Nick Vivarelli,
Variety,
25 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Clavicular is like a blend of Dorian Gray and Patrick Bateman, those fictional creations of gay authors out to probe the sinister side of male vanity.—
Spencer Kornhaber,
The Atlantic,
27 Mar. 2026
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The prologue that opens Ragtime loudly announces the musical’s epic ambitions as its nine fictional characters and six of its historical figures introduce themselves with third-person narration and shout-singing.—
Manuel Mendoza,
Dallas Morning News,
27 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Hallucinatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hallucinatory. Accessed 3 Apr. 2026.
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