Comments on: Trippy moving illusion

By: tiggerbone

tiggerbone — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:51:00 +0000

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.

By: drewski

drewski — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:05:12 +0000

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.

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:53:42 +0000

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.

By: Scott Smith

Scott Smith — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:43:24 +0000

Holy smokes. I’ve got a couple of stuffed bears and i just watched one of em’s legs grow and shrink.. hahaha

By: Fatboy

Fatboy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:52:04 +0000

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).

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:31:55 +0000

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.

By: michel

michel — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:11:18 +0000

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.

By: Erin F.

Erin F. — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:57:49 +0000

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?

By: Kelsey

Kelsey — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:27:19 +0000

It’s more like weak mushrooms than LSD.

By: T_U_T

T_U_T — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:17:30 +0000

classic “overload neurons in visual cortex till complete exhaustion, and then watch them screwing up all processing” type of illusion.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:13:33 +0000

I just like staring at the moving pattern, never mind the after-effect.

By: Corneel

Corneel — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:48:07 +0000

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

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:40:52 +0000

kinda makes my eyes water.

By: Elwoodius

Elwoodius — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:15:50 +0000

Best.Website.Ever.

By: Harold

Harold — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:02:47 +0000

J.D. Mack @ #51, the Mickey Dolenz version looks a lot like the OMNI magazine one mentioned in comments 30 and 37.

By: MarkHB

MarkHB — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:29:43 +0000

WOoOooOoooo squibbly! That’s so cool!

Cheers Phil!

By: Paul M.

Paul M. — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:57:37 +0000

Like Londo Mollari… I saw nothing

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:52:49 +0000

Look in a mirror after doing this. Awesome

By: José Rui Abreu Mira

José Rui Abreu Mira — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:03:30 +0000

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).

By: Bunkie

Bunkie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:11:03 +0000

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…

By: Kernan

Kernan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:34:04 +0000

Love the optical illusion, but the little 2001 vignette on his bizarre “television” option is awesome.

By: Crudely Wrott

Crudely Wrott — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:07:39 +0000

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?

By: Ken B

Ken B — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:22:50 +0000

Alright, who melted my keyboard?

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:21:44 +0000

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.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:30:35 +0000

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?