Illusions. The bizarre glitches of our brains

Ominous experiments

In 2012, neurologist Josef Parvizi performed a bizarre experiment on a patient with electrodes implanted into his brain to localize the focus of seizures. He wanted to know how the electric stimulation of the facial recognition region of the brain would affect the patient’s perception of reality.

Dr Parvizi: “Just look at my face and tell me what happens when I do this, alright?”

Patient: “Okay.”

Dr Parvizi: “One. Two. Three.”

Patient: “You just turned into somebody else. Your face metamorphosed. Your nose got saggy and went to the left. You almost looked like somebody I’d seen before, but somebody different. That was a trip.”

Dr Parvizi: “Hm.”

The full video is available on YouTube.

That eerie example isn’t the only way the human brain can warp the perception of reality. Read the following story, which was published in Nature and titled “Brain electrodes conjure up ghostly visions.” Here are a few quotes from that article:

“Doctors treating the patient, a 22-year-old woman with epilepsy, found that when they stimulated a brain region called the left temporoparietal junction, the patient sensed the presence of a sinister figure behind her who copied her actions.

For the few seconds that the electrical stimulation was occurring, she described a sensation of a shadowy man hovering behind her.

When asked to lean forward and hug her knees, she said it felt like the man was (unpleasantly) reaching around to grasp her.

“She was aware of this but said it remained quite scary. She still had to turn around to check [there was no one there],” Blanke recalls.”

Our brains might sometimes behave in bizarre ways. But our brains don’t always tell us the reality. For example, the brain might sense the world around us correctly. But, when converted into our perception, it undergoes myriad simplifications and adjustments.

We wouldn’t want you to feel like your brain is constantly lying, and you should never trust it. That is a road to insanity. Mostly, it does a great job at showing you the reality, but sometimes it creates some peculiar and frankly hilarious mistakes. Meet the visual illusions.

Visual illusions show the glitches of our brains.

Most of the information we perceive as vision comes not from our eyes but from our brain’s predictions of what it thinks it will see. This is because the eyes are there only to adjust the image.

Here you can see one of the classic examples of this battle between what our brain wants to see vs what our eyes see. The eyes see white dots, but the brain strongly assumes there are black dots for unknown reasons.

Many of you might have encountered this illusion; it is relatively common. It is special because it shows how absolutely hardwired the warping of perception is. Squares A and B appear to be of different colors in the first picture, but they are actually not (which is seen in the second image). Despite that, we can’t unsee them being different in the first picture.

The last illusion shows again that even if we know that the green squares are aligned perfectly straight (dare yourself and measure), we simply cannot unsee them being slightly wavy.

These illusions demonstrate how the brain makes up our perception of reality. Our senses don’t always fix the perception (illusion 1). New experiences also don’t always align with the truth (illusion 2). And even if we know something is not how we see it, we still can not make our brain see it the true way (illusion 3).

What we think of as “reality” is just an intricate, mostly believable story that our brain tells us.

Mental wellbeing. When reality is a warped illusion

The human brain makes things up all the time. Squares, dots, and lines are very simple warps of perception, but our brains can also warp reality in more complex and entangling ways.

When we experience stress, and feel depressed or anxious, our brain’s perception of reality can be warped (in reminiscence with visual illusions), creating negative thought spirals that can often be excruciatingly hard to get out of. For example, when you are particularly irritable at the end of a stressful day, the whole universe just seems dull and grim. But in reality, you are just a fruit bowl away from feeling good again.

Not only that, but the warping of reality also manifests itself in things like social prejudices and biases, which is why gaslighting can work.

How can you change it all

Reading all of this might have left you with a bitter aftertaste, but we wouldn’t want you to go with that. So instead, this article is about something more paramount than just knowing that your brain is warping your reality.

Yes, our brains might not be perfect. Yes, they might sometimes lie to us, warp our perception of reality and cause us to feel miserable. But, our brains are imperfect, which is their weakness and strength!

The human brain has been named the most complex thing in the universe. True, there are some moments when we want to hate it. But remember visual illusions because they teach us how to be curious and mindful of the mental illusions of our brains.

Whether you choose meditation, a high-quality diet, exercise, psychotherapy, biohacking, or any other way to improve the well-being of your brain and mind, don’t forget:

You personally decide whether to let those elusive glitches roam your mind or take action and steer this tumbling mind-plane back on the track of reality.