Imagery: The Menu For The Meal What is problematic isn't imagery and imagination per se, it's the error of mistaking an image -- by definition a mental construct or fabrication -- for the actuality it may well have been intended to point toward or evoke. If one harbors (is attached to) an image, that image tends to perceptually displace the actual. When we understand the nature of imagery, we are free to enjoy it as such, as part and parcel of "what is" -- if we don't we will very likely mistake the menu for the meal.