2.1. An Optical Illusion

Posted on 6 November 2019

An optical illusion is where mind is tricked into perceiving something that doesn’t exist from what your eyes see.

Your eye only perceives a certain quantity of visual information at any given time.

Your brain continuously constructs and reconstructs visual information at an astronomical rate.

It is this continuous process that gives us sight.

However, the with the right combination of colours, shapes, spatial relations, and other stimuli this continuous process can be tricked to look the wrong way.

Straight or curved?

These lines can be thought of as an Optical Illusion of the Eyes.

You know the lines are straight, yet they look so curved.

If you can be tricked so easily by a few lines, how else can your mind be tricked?

You understand optical illusions because you can see them in front of you.

These illusions serve to remind you that the way your eye and brain connect together can be tricked by the simplest of traps.

The eye only sees what the mind is willing to comprehend.

However, your mind is hard wired and programmed into certain automatic thought processes.

These automatic thought processes are like triggers which can be pulled to make you think in certain, often irrational, ways – an illusion of the mind.

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