Via the ever-awesome Richard Wiseman comes this very trippy and distressing illusion [WARNING (seriously): if you are prone to motion sickness or visually-induced epilepsy, don't got there. You will regret it!]
I tried it, and it screwed up my eyesight for about a minute… though it was a pretty fun minute. And I have to say that IT WAS BETTER THAN CATS. I WILL SEE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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September 28th, 2009 at 11:24 am
That is very cool indeed. I never managed to get high on shrooms, but from what I heard it is a lot like this. I actually could tell pretty precisely when the effect kicked in.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I RECOMMEND IT TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:48 am
1. Pieter Kok
It somewhat reminds me of my days of wine and acid. I will note, the effect is very transient, unlike the entheogens. Also, this particular effect is more reminiscent of ’shrooms than Least Significant Digit(LOL). The imagery of that latter entheogen tends to be MUCH more complex,(faces, forests, aliens, yada,yada,,,)
Fascinating what we’ve developed in our ability to create illusions.
Gary 7
September 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Darn, access denied…
Although, I do find it amusing at how EASY it is to totally trick the human brain. Con men and charlatans (and defense lawyers?) seem to take advantage of that fact all the time, yet people still keep falling for it.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
The effect lasts only about 5 seconds for me. I guess my visual cortex is just too stable.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
As a reformed cat-hater, it is my considered opinion that everyone, Phil included, is simply the right cat away from a cat-person.
Also, it was sort of cool, although it only lasted about 10s for me.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Off topic – I’m having trouble getting to the Bad Astronomy home page. I keep getting the front page from Sept. 21, with the Armadillo article at the top. I can’t seem to get the current BA articles. The only way I could get to this one was through the Discover Magazine home page.
I’ve cleared out any stored history in IE. Is anyone else having this problem?
September 28th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Crap I’m going to be nauseated for the rest of the day.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
That was pretty cool. Slightly disorienting, but way cool. Perhaps something that Mr. Mistofeles would use on his humans.
Edit to add: I have a woozy headache, now. Be ye warned.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Awesome
September 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Is anyone else amused at the heavy advertising from Templeton Press on this site?
September 28th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
From now on I don’t need any texture on my walls, I just go and look at that freaky stuff, lol. Thanks for sharing. Anna.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Pretty neat. The full effect only lasted about five seconds for me, and the last subtle trace of it disappeared after about 15 seconds.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
For those who have never done drugs, this certainly gives one a small taste of what one is missing.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Wow, that actually made me a little bit sick to my stomach. Never seen a simple black/white moving pattern illusion with that powerful an effect. Visual effects were pretty cool too, random spots in my field of view grew and shrank.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Were there red dots shooting out of the center or was that an artifact of the illusion?
For anyone who plays Guitar Hero or Rock Band, the visual sliding effect when you look away is familiar
September 28th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
@Carey
A coworker mentioned the same thing.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Since it didn’t do a thing for me, I still place my cats at the top.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Very cool. It didn’t give me a migraine, which is good because a lot of those things do.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I was also going to say that I get a similar effect from playing Guitar Hero…
September 28th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
20. PG
I get somewhat the same effect from drumming for long periods of time. It lasts about 20 minutes and I have come to believe it is merely an associative stimulus effect(ie, flashback).
GAry 7
September 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Oh this is so going on facebook…
September 28th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Veeerrry woozy now. Uggg.
The effect only lasted for between 5 and 8 seconds each time I tried (longest the first time, with decreasing duration thereafter) before my brain re-adjusted. I wonder if that means that I’m overly susceptible to perception warping? After all, the faster you adjust, the shorter the time it takes to fool you.
Regardless it was an interesting effect:).
September 28th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I have a tendency to get motion sick and stay off of amusement rides, so I was a bit reluctant to try it at first. Oddly, the effect was very minor and only lasted a couple of seconds for me. Watching for an extended period got annoying, but didn’t result in a larger or longer effect.
Clear skies, Alan
September 28th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
What? I don’t get it. I stared at the centre for 20 seconds, maybe even more, but after that when I looked at the walls and ceiling, I saw some sort lines/”wrinkles,” that’s all. And it didn’t last for more than a couple of seconds.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
@Navneeth
The warping/wrinkling of your vision is the illusion. And, yeah, the effect doesn’t last long.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Eeeeew! Isn’t that illegal?
September 28th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Very, very LSD-like… I mean, from what I’ve *heard* anyway.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
The site has a nice planetarium which shows the night sky with the constellations, their locations and identities when you mouse over them. Pretty nifty.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
OMNI magazine had a version of this in the issue with Jerry Andrus back in 1981 or so. You had to cut out the image and put it on a record player. It was a triple-spiral. They also had a cool photo of clouds that you could use to test the effect. I found that I could summon up the effect at will hours later, which was pretty neat. OMNI was a great magazine back in the early-to-mid 1980’s, before it became all woo.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
It would be great to make that a screen saver…
September 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I just got back from teh hospital. I guess I didn’t know that I had photo sensitive epilepsy….
KIDDING!!!!! But I could see how this would mess somebody up.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Only lasted for a few seconds, but, I looked at a picture of the lunar surface as my “target”.
That was kind of fun.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Try preparing by opening up a full-size picture in another window (say, of the Sun). When you are getting the full effect, quickly switch to that pic. Cooooolll!
September 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“…I WILL SEE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.”
The first hit is always free.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
DOOOD!!!
- Jack
September 28th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
BTW, I have a similar illusion that I got from the old “OMNI” magazine a couple of decades ago. Instead of diamonds moving in and out simultaneously, it had helixes (helices?). That one you were supposed to photocopy and place on your turntable at 33 1/3 RPM (anyone under 40 understand what I just said?). Similar effect except it was swirley instead of pulsing.
- Jack
September 28th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Is this thing available as a screensaver?
September 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I’ve loved that illusion since I first saw one like it on Bill Nye the Science Guy. But how and why does it WORK?
September 28th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I used to get this effect the productive way – when I was a kid down south, out in the country… no, I didn’t collect fungus from cow pastures. I just mowed our big lot out in the middle of nowhere with a Snapper riding mower. Since I was always looking a few feet ahead of the mower at whatever I was approaching, and it was generally a monotonous texture (brownish, dying grass), and the mower was always vibrating, the instant I stopped and killed that old Briggs & Stratton engine, everything started crawling away from me, slowly and incessantly. Sometimes I might be mowing for half an hour or more at a stretch. Plenty of time, I reckon, to train yer brain. The illusion would persist for ten minutes or so.
It was an intense sensation and directly analogous to this illusion.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
My reaction was “Wow, cool. I hope it stops.”
There’s one LSD effect that’s similar (staring at intricate patterns can result in apparent movement) but the drug has so much more to offer…some of which isn’t all that much fun, like losing the sense of your body’s physical boundaries. Also, you can throw up your own soul.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
41. feralboy12
“like losing the sense of your body’s physical boundaries”
Ah, the old depersonalization routine. Heard of it. Never experienced it.
“Also, you can throw up your own soul.”
Hmmm,,,are you sure you’re not referring to mescaline? That stuff is kinda barffy. Too many alkaloids.
Gary 7
September 28th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
That was fun!
September 28th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Make the spiders go away.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Oh, yes! This makes work a whole lot more interesting… my co-workers never looked so good.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I would be interested in the correlation between those of us who saw a more extended and severe visual effect and those of us who have at some point done hallucinogens. In my experience, having done a drug will make you more sensitive and perceptive to the effects of that drug in subsequent experiences (tolerance aside). It would not surprise me it also did so for similar visual effects from a non-elicit source. Also, did anyone else see orange lightning bolts shooting outward while looking at the pattern?
September 28th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I must be prone to motion sickness, because I’m actually not feeling very well right now, after staring at it twice.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
This not only gave me the effect of ‘breathing walls’ (I have this huge medieval tapestry above my desk that helped accentuate this), but I even got that detached effect you get with hallucinogenics… although only lasting for maybe half a minute at the most rather than half a day.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Look into the Hypnotic EYE!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053931/
September 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I stared at the image for at least 20 seconds, and nothing looked any different when I looked away. I wonder if it’s because I had LASIK last week?
September 28th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Interestingly, Micky Dolenz (of The Monkees) has a similar illusion on his website which dates back about 10 years. I don’t know who originated it.
http://www.mickydolenz.com/lynx_shock.html
(Click on “Wow”)
J. D.
September 28th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Alright, who melted my keyboard?
September 28th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Thanks, Phil. That was wicked nostalgic.
Now I think I’ll go look again . . . while keeping that special handful of brain cells that are buried deep in my brain stem functioning normally. It’s an old trick that’s always seen me through times of altered synaptic syncopation.
Another interesting illusion is tactile, rather than visual. It works thusly:
1-Fill three glasses with water; one cold, one lukewarm, one hot.
2-Put a finger on one hand into the hot, one on the other hand into the cold.
3-Wait thirty seconds.
4-Put both fingers simultaneously into the lukewarm.
5-What is the temperature of the lukewarm water?
September 28th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Love the optical illusion, but the little 2001 vignette on his bizarre “television” option is awesome.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:11 am
That was cool. I love rides and never get sick on most of them – except the merry-go-round which, is just like having vertigo and this optical gives me that same feeling. queazy now. ohhhh…
September 29th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Sweet. I liked the part where the screen looked like jell-o. I sent the link to all my contacts (with the warning, of course).
September 29th, 2009 at 3:52 am
Look in a mirror after doing this. Awesome
September 29th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Like Londo Mollari… I saw nothing
September 29th, 2009 at 5:29 am
WOoOooOoooo squibbly! That’s so cool!
Cheers Phil!
September 29th, 2009 at 6:02 am
J.D. Mack @ #51, the Mickey Dolenz version looks a lot like the OMNI magazine one mentioned in comments 30 and 37.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Best.Website.Ever.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:40 am
kinda makes my eyes water.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I did that illusion before, but I was told to look at my hands afterwards. That gives a rather creepy effect, because it looks like your skin is crawling off your hands.
I bet you wanna try it again now
September 29th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I just like staring at the moving pattern, never mind the after-effect.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:17 am
classic “overload neurons in visual cortex till complete exhaustion, and then watch them screwing up all processing” type of illusion.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:27 am
It’s more like weak mushrooms than LSD.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Amen to the Rock Band/Guitar Hero effect. I play Rock Band for 20 minutes, and things are crawling up the walls for 5 minutes after I stop. It actually gets me a little queasy after awhile.
This one just made my cube walls “breath” for about 10 seconds. Good times. Who needs drugs?
September 29th, 2009 at 11:11 am
this makes me curious… how can this visual effect result in a similar experience to taking magic mushrooms or lsd? (even if the effect is shorter) if i were a neuroscientist, i would see this as an opportunity to learn about how the brain functions.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Another way to achieve a similar effect is to read a scrolling LED sign for a long time, such as one with news headlines or stock market prices.
September 29th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I have a program named optical.exe from years ago that does pretty much the same illusion, pretty much a digital version of the spiral Harold and Jack mentiond. But it doesn’t run on XP 64, so I’m glad to have found a new version.
I may be mistaken, but I thought this illusion occured in our eyes before the nerves ever sent the signal to the visual cortex (there’s a lot of pre-processing that take place).
September 29th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Holy smokes. I’ve got a couple of stuffed bears and i just watched one of em’s legs grow and shrink.. hahaha
September 30th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Uh oh…. I just happened to be listening to the Airplane on my ipod when I clicked here….
The Tehune Airwalk was trippy enough IRL… The trees and walk in the picture on this month’s calendar was bouncing around like a hurricane.
September 30th, 2009 at 5:05 am
At first I was all like WTF? Phil crazy! Then I realised I only have one contact lense in. When I closed one eye and just looked at it with just the eye that has a lense, I got the effect when I looked away.
October 1st, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Darn you, Phil! I just distracted the entirety of my co-workers at Fermilab with this. It is on your head if we spread this throughout the community.