Welcome to this lesson, where we delve deeply into the useEffect hook in React. Our goal is to grasp the concept of component lifecycle in functional components and use the useEffect hook to achieve this. A lifecycle in this context is a component's birth, growth, and retirement. We'll dissect each phase and apply useEffect. We'll conclude with a real-world example to solidify these concepts. Let's get started!

The component lifecycle is a sequence of events that range from initialization through to destruction in a React application, much like a human lifecycle.

1. Mounting: This is the point at which a component's life commences, much like the start of life for a newborn baby.

2. Updating: Throughout a component's lifetime, it may evolve, thanks to changes in state and props, just as we grow and adapt.

3. Unmounting: When a component is no longer needed, it's removed — this is akin to the end of life.

Functional components don’t have lifecycle methods like class components. However, useEffect can simulate these behaviors.

useEffect is excellent for simulating lifecycle methods:

1. Mounting with useEffect: By using useEffect and specifying an empty array as the dependency, the effect runs once after the initial render.