A distorted view of reality

It never ceases to amaze me what our minds can actually make up, from this flat lifeless 2 dimensional drawing, my mind creates a 3 dimensional moving image. Of course this idea that what we perceive has little to do with reality is not new and it is well known the sky is not blue (sorry Louis Armstrong) and its blueness is perceived from the light emitted from particles floating in the air and that if we didn’t have an atmosphere we would perceive the sky as black (totally lacking in colour).

Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka of Ritsumeikan University, Japan, created this impressive illusion which highlights our brain’s ability to perceive two identical sources of light as completely different colours. It’s a picture of a girl who seems to have lost a blue contact from her right eye. Her left eye is clearly blue.

In fact, it is not. Take a closer look; both eyes are exactly the same shade of grey. The solid block of the same grey in the blown-up picture helps to see it properly. Even with the grey block I had trouble seeing it, so I covered all the red bits and squinted at it through one eye. It’s definitely grey.

If you’re anything like me and sometimes find yourself getting into an argument that cant be won, as arguing is just as much about asserting ones “rightness” as it is about convincing the other person of the error of their ways, it is easy to loose sight of the other persons perspective and that any sort of reality depends on your perception. My depressed patients see life as meaningless and  fulfil that prophesy by staying at home so that life does indeed become meaningless, the same way as anxious person will perceive the world as a dangerous place by focusing on the dangers.