Once upon a time - and this is a true story -

"there was a yachtsman making a single-handed passage in the Caribbean Sea. He struck a bad patch, about four days of heavy weather. When the wind moderated he was not at all certain of his position. So he took his sextant and tried to shoot the sun, but he was unable. He carried on sailing, and within a short while sighted a lone fisherman in a dinghy. He was delighted about this, because it meant that he must be near land, and he hailed the fisherman, asking his position. The fisherman made no response. He continued to fish without even glancing at the yacht. Evidently a surly type. So the yachtsman sailed on - and soon he sighted land and a small harbour. From this harbor a pleasure launch put out, crowded with trippers, and passed within 50 feet. He hailed the launch. Not a soul aboard answered or showed the slightest interest in his plight. Proper bunch of curmudgeons, he thought. Anyway, he shouldn't worry. He had made landfall after a rough passage and had found a snug harbor. He sailed into the harbor and - because nobody paid the slightest attention to him (no Customs blokes, no medical officer) - he chose a clear area, got out the lead-line and found eight fathoms, and anchored. Then he dropped through the hatch, hit the cabin floor and flaked out for twelve hours. On awakening he clambered on deck. His yacht was securely anchored. But there was no harbor, no pleasure launches, no fishermen in dinghies, no land in sight. But - he was anchored in eight fathoms. He'd got that right anyway. The rest was pure hallucination - wishful thinking - brought on by sheer, overwhelming fatigue." excerpt from Handling Small Boats in Heavy Weather by Frank Robb.
A friend let me borrow this book today, and pointed out this story. I think I've read or heard it before. It's always very interesting to me. Hallucination. seeing things that don't really "exist." Often in life we see things that don't really exist. It may not be physical things per se that we see but don't exist, but rather we may see things in a way that may not be. In the study of Buddhism we learn the inherent emptiness of everything. Our world exists the way it does because of the way we view it with our biases, desires, past experiences... How much of what we observe is really real? And with a phenomenon like hallucination... makes you kinda wonder, doesn't it? Are you really reading this? Did I really write this? Did a man really land on the moon? Is the Earth really round? Does the Earth really exist as we think it does... Do you really exist as you think you do? How do others really see you? Do you hallucinate that you are a kind loving person? Do you hallucinate that others are ignorant and selfish? Nothing is inherently as we see it.