Confabulated

To confabulate means to fabricate or invent details, memories, or stories, often unintentionally, to fill in gaps in one's recollection. It is frequently a symptom of cognitive impairment or memory disorders but can also occur in individuals under stress or pressure. The information presented may feel real to the person confabulating, and they are typically unaware that the details are false, reflecting an effort to make sense of their current experience. It’s not considered lying, as there is no conscious intent to deceive.

Confabulated meaning with examples

• After the head injury, the patient frequently confabulated elaborate stories about his childhood, complete with details he'd never experienced. This pattern perplexed the doctors as he became increasingly convinced about the authenticity of his *confabulations*. He believed the tales and insisted he remembered everything, even when directly confronted with contrary evidence.
• Under the pressure of the interrogation, the suspect began to *confabulate*, constructing a timeline of events that didn't align with witness testimonies. He desperately tried to fill in the gaps in his memory with imagined scenarios, desperately trying to make his alibi fit the evidence, and in doing so he believed his own stories.
• The elderly woman, suffering from dementia, confabulated consistently, talking about past events that never happened or attributing events to different family members. She was living in a world built from fragments of memory, and constructed new realities. She found comfort in the invented narratives that offered a sense of structure.
• In an attempt to understand the strange events of the night, the amnesiac began to *confabulate* his account. He tried to fill in the blank spaces. He built a false, but internally consistent story. He found that this process of storytelling helped make sense of his disoriented and chaotic existence.
• During the therapy session, the patient, experiencing severe trauma, began to *confabulate* details about his past that seemed almost fanciful. This was their mind’s way of coping. The details were inconsistent, indicating an attempt to find a cohesive narrative, even if the truth was suppressed. The therapist knew that this required careful handling.