A number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have recently started to explore the possibility that perception is really a kind of ‘controlled hallucination’. But as exciting as this rhetoric is, they’ve said little about what ‘control’ amounts to; and few of them have explained why it matters whether we are hallucinating a shared world, or perceiving things “as they really are”. In this talk, I will offer some reflections on these themes. I will start by situating this rhetoric within Cartesian worries about evil demons and hallucinated worlds. I’ll then turn to an alternative model derived from Yogācāra Buddhism, to explore some of the significant similarities and differences between anomalous experiences evoked by meditation, and anomalous experiences that are commonly labeled as hallucinations. And I will close by arguing that understanding how such experiences are produced offers a powerful framework for thinking about the socially and historically situated nature of everyday experience.