Day 2: Optical Illusions: When we see what isn’t there

“…You say, ‘I’m rich, and I’ve grown wealthy, and I don’t need a thing.’ You don’t realize that you are miserable, pathetic, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

I’m going to be sharing a lot of optical illusions with you this week, because I think they are great ways to illustrate how our consciousness works.

The two illusions I’m sharing today work because our eyeballs are always moving in very tiny ways. These micro-movements are involuntary. Paired with the tendency for our brains to fill in missing information about data they don’t directly perceive (see yesterday’s devotional), images that are still may look like they are moving. Lines that are straight may appear to curve or wiggle.

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that we don’t always see what is there. Today’s illusions show that sometimes we see what isn’t there; in this case, our brains add motion or curves to still images. In the above image, wheels that are still appear to move, because your eye is moving around the image to try to capture all that is there. But whenever you focus on a spot, you see that the wheels are still. Below, for a similar reason, lines that are straight appear to curve.  

Both of these illusions illustrate that the area your eyes can clearly see is actually pretty tiny. Even when you stand on a cliff and look out an immense sky, your brain is able to convey the enormity of your panoramic vision, but you are really only able to focus on an area about the size of your thumbnail.

We always add information to what we perceive. In relationships, this may look like hearing an angry tone or a nasty implication in a neutral statement. It may look like the assumptions we make about someone else’s intent or state of mind.

In society, it may look like making value judgments about wealth, status, and deserving. We associate money with success, and success with virtue (which John points out in the passage from Revelation above).

This doesn’t mean “everything is relative.” We can take out a ruler and measure. Using careful observation, we can see that the lines or wheels in the illustrations above do not move. The optical illusion only works as an illustration because there is a consensus-based reality that we can know.

I’m reminded of the story of Hannah from 1 Samuel 1, who prefigures Mary. When she kneels in the temple, praying without making a sound, the priest Eli initially assumes she is drunk. She sets him straight: “Don’t think your servant is some good-for-nothing woman. This whole time I’ve been praying out of my great worry and trouble!” (1 Samual 1:16). When we tell the story of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy, we’re aware that people who had incomplete information probably added their own information and assumptions to her story.

These illusions also highlight an important theme in both Christmas and consciousness. When we look at the stars, whether we see divine portents in the heavens or simply balls of burning gas, “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”

Prayer: God, help us be circumspect in our assumptions and judgments. Amen.

—Rev. Dr. David Barnhart, Jr. 

(Spinning Wheels optical illusion was sourced from Optics4Kids, and appears to come from a 2007 issue of Scientific American. I was not able to find an original source for the map/curving lines illusion.)  

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