confabulation

/kənˌfæbjuˈleɪʃən/

Other forms: confabulations

If you're chatting away for hours to your old college friend who you haven't seen in years, that's a confabulation — a personal, often rambling and generally wide-ranging conversation.

A second, slightly sinister and less common meaning for confabulation is a false memory that someone creates to fill out gaps where real experience has been too traumatic to recall. As with the more common and happier meaning, both types of confabulation generally imply a good deal of creative, free-wheeling association.

Definitions of confabulation

1. noun

   an informal conversation
   synonyms: chat, confab, schmoose, schmooze

   types:

   causerie, chin wag, chin wagging, chin-wag, chin-wagging, chit chat, chit-chat, chitchat, gab, gabfest, gossip, small talk, tittle-tattle

   light informal conversation for social occasions

   type of:

   conversation

   the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc.
2. noun

   (psychiatry) a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered
   type of:

   memory

   something that is remembered