I think that's pretty much the standard theory nowadays. If I understand my pop-science correctly, our subjective visual field is actually made of images synth

I think that's pretty much the standard theory nowadays. If I understand my pop-science correctly, our subjective visual field is actually made of images synthesised from objects we have recognised. When we are awake, this mostly matches the real world because we select those objects to match data coming from the eyes. But when we dream or hallucinate, the synthesis circuits fire based on other inputs -- such as noise.