Optical illusions

"Visual illusions ... fascinated me; they showed how intellectual understanding, insight,
and even common sense were powerless against the force of perceptual distortions."
-- Oliver Sacks, On The Move


I've always been fascinated by optical illusions, the way they suggest that there are extra meanings and patterns to be found in the world if you look hard enough ... or, sometimes, if you stop looking so hard. And sometimes those extra meanings are creepy, or puzzling, or just plain beautiful. I even did my first science fair project on optical illusions, back in the 1970s, and now, young students (like Alexa, a follower of this site) are continuing to study the science behind visual perception.

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain only one color, pink. However if you stare at the black '+' in the centre, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black '+' in the center of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see only a single green dot rotating.

It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see. (thanks to Stacy for this one)


These chrysanthemums appear to expand. See more optical illusions by this creator here.


Is this wheel turning?


Albert Einstein or a Hollywood actress?


Are the dots at the intersection of the white lines white ... or black? (This one, and the next few, are from here.


Is this just a picture of a face? Liar!


How many legs does this elephant have?


The square marked A is a different shade of gray than the square marked B ... or is it?


Can you read this?


Are these horizontal lines straight and parallel? See more illusions like this here.


These beans are pulsating, or they may not be ...


Stare at the center of this spiral and move your head in and out, to see it rotate. See more like this here.


Is it just me? or is it you too? See more like this here.


Oddly pretty.



The rest of these come from imgur.com ... and once again, thanks to the creators of these images and scenes.
























Not sure where the rest of these illusions came from -- I foudn them years ago, and just kept them in a folder -- but here they are.









































Here's a link for testing your eye health with optical illusions.



























































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