Information Systems scholars continuously debate about the nature of the IS discipline. Recently a series of articles have discussed whether the IS field has reached the status of a reference discipline. We address this issue by examining the application of the theory of sensemaking in IS research. Our findings show that the prospects for IS as a reference discipline are not promising. Based on these findings we suggest that IS scholars hallucinate when they a) assume that to become a 'real' academic discipline, IS has to become a reference discipline, and b) believe that IS will become a reference discipline in time. Hence, we describe the IS reference discipline discussion as a misconception, which should be abandoned in the pursuit of a stronger IS discipline. Academic legitimacy, information systems research, reference disciplines, theory application, theory of sensemakin
