Optical Illusions!

Again, here’s another marginally writing-oriented post. Writers do need to exercise their brains a little outside the written word on occasion. Besides, we’re kindred spirits with visual artists.

The “Big Spanish Castle” illusion will cause you to have a “yeah, right” moment when you read the instructions. Just do it. You won’t believe it otherwise. It freaked me out the first time I did it.

The theory behind this is based on the concept of afterimage. You can find a neat experiment and explanation of this here.

The guy who created the castle illusion also includes a helpful tutorial on how to make your own from any image (look below the image on his page).

What I found interesting about both of these was that after going through the experiments once and then going back and doing them again later, I could sense a moment when what I was staring at started to look ‘different’, which seemed to coincide with the moment my retinas got ‘tired’ (see the afterimage link above). I didn’t have to wait the full 30 seconds, just until I sensed whatever it was that was different.

If nothing else, it’s a fun diversion. So enjoy, then get back to writing!