APA Dictionary of Psychology

n. the realm of images: one of three aspects of the psychoanalytic field defined by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981). The Imaginary is that state of being in which the infant has no sense of being a subject distinct from other people or the external world and no sense of their place in human culture. After the infant’s entry into the Symbolic (the world of language, culture, and morality), they can return to the wholeness of the Imaginary only in fantasy. See also Real.