It is This Surplus Dimension which Functions as the Real
But the Lacanian perspective is precisely the opposite. Against the usual prohibition that symbolic fiction should not be confused with, or mistaken for, reality, the central insight of Lacan is that the Real should not be mistaken for symbolic fiction. That is to say, the true philosophical art is not to recognize fiction behind reality - i.e. you experience something as reality and through the work of deconstructive criticism you unmask it as mere symbolic fiction - but to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction. It’s the other way around. The true undertaking is not the identification of reality as symbolic fiction, but to show that there can be something in symbolic fiction which is more than fiction. It is this surplus dimension which functions as the Real. We might say that in the big opposition between reality and these spectral fantasies, the Real is on the side of fantasies. This is the crucial point.
~Slavoj Žižek
Conversations with Žižek {with Glyn Daly} ~ Cambridge : Polity Press, 2004 / pg 102
