I had an elderly neighbor who unfortunately suffered from this. I spoke with her off-and-on over the first year or so, and she loved to talk. She would tell me about her daughter and grandkid, things that she saw that day, etc.
It was all very plausible but I always felt like there was something off about her. Then one day she told me a story about me, and things I’d said, done, and experienced and it was all absolutely made up, from the overarching plot down the finest details. It never happened, couldn’t have happened, and couldn’t have been even something that happened to someone else.
I tried to politely correct her at first, but she was so certain that she began worrying about me and why I couldn’t remember so I decided to just stand and nod to avoid stressing her out.
Came here to say the same thing. Medically confabulation is different than hallucination and far more similar to what is being described. Confabulation is seen with wernike-korsokoff syndrome which can be found in very long time alcohol use disorder. The patient makes up stories to fit the gaps in their memory without necessarily realizing that is what they are doing.
Whereas hallucinations are more like present sensory disturbances happening at that moment.
