Marc Richir's analysis and argument indicated that Husserl held imagination as a kind of"perceptual representation"of image objects without physical carrier,and imagination was a simulacrum of perceptual representation.The distinction between phantom and imagination is not very strictly defined,but a difference does exist.That is,imagination still has its image subjects that are absent,while phantom has no image subjects that are absent.Phantasmal manifestations have four characteristics as fol-lows.First,it is variability or deformability;second,it is the non-continuous flashes in the so-called continuous time processes;third,it is the intermittent in the same assumed time continuum;fourth,their appearance is nothingness that does not exist.How-ever,the phantom needs to be manifested in the act of imagining,though the phantom has no corresponding image subject of the re-ality that it represents.In theatrical performances,the dramatic characters are"perceptual"phantom that cannot be perceived di-rectly as they do not exist,and the actors have only incarnations of the intangible theatrical characters.Only when an actor can ex-ercise empathy in the incarnation as a perceptual phantom that does not exist,can he be a good actor.