The word 幻觉 (huànjué), meaning "hallucination" or "illusion", is formed by combining two conceptual building blocks. The first character, 幻 (huàn), carries the core idea of "unreal", "illusory", or "magical transformation". The second character, 觉 (jué), represents "perception", "sensation", or "feeling". When merged, they create a direct and intuitive composite: an "unreal perception" or a "sensation of the illusory", perfectly capturing the essence of experiencing something that appears real but is not physically present.