 Second, in contrast with the dependent nature which is the basis of “what appears” (yat khyāti), the imaginary nature (parikalpita), as Vasubandu defines it, is the mode of appearance “as it appears” (sau yathā khyāti) on the ground that its existence is only an “unreal conceptual fabrication” (asatakalpo) ([TSN] 2, Sems tsam chi 10a). The imaginary nature is only an “unreal conceptual construction” because of two reasons: (i) it is the dependent nature—representations—merely dually reified by the mind as an ultimately real subject, or self, or eg, and (ii) the imaginary nature is dualistic reification of beings and objects as existing really and externally, there is no such reality.