It seems the universe is constantly making fun at our expense. One of the ways it does that is by trying to disorientate us. Whether it's a rock that looks exactly like a human heart or a cloud formation that disguised itself as a floating ocean, optical illusions are all around us.
The technical term for this "flaw" in our sensory system is pareidolia, which means the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.
While many of these moments come and go, as Bored Panda showed in our previous publications here and here, some people manage to take a picture of whatever it is that's tricking their brains. Continue scrolling to check out the latest examples of pareidolia that we found!
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Incredible Cloud Formation That Appeared To Look Like An Ocean In The Sky
Wow this is trippy. Can't make my brain see clouds, only stormy sea.
Lace Bug (Stephanitis Typicus) Looks Like Stained Glass
Nature never ceases to amaze me with its beauty. That is was gorgeous insect.
The term pareidolia is derived from the Greek words para, meaning something faulty, wrong, instead of, and the noun eidōlon, meaning image, form, or shape. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, which is a more generalized term for seeing patterns in random data.
To get a better understanding of human vision, we contacted Dr. Jess Taubert, who was awarded the ARC Future Fellowship and is currently working at the University of Queensland, analyzing the aspects of social cognition that are grounded in visual recognition.
"A lot of our cortex is dedicated to processing visual input, particularly the things (objects and people) that we look at," she told Bored Panda. "When we focus on something, our brain builds a high-fidelity representation of that thing which includes information about all of its physical properties but also things like 'do we recognize that specific chair as the comfortable one from our office' or 'do we like that specific person.' Outside of where we are looking, which is called our periphery, is a different story. Despite how it feels, we don’t have a good sense of the objects and people in our periphery."
The Wear And Scuff Marks On This Boat Look Like An Island In The Sea
I Snapped A Photo Of My Dog Through A Window Screen That Looks Like An Old Painting
The Way My Windscreen Froze
Dr. Taubert said that in order to understand why we see meaning where there is none, we need to know that "our perception of the world emerges from a confluence of computations in different parts of the brain, some of them are in the visual cortex (which receives visual input from the eyes) but there are other influences from the circuitry responsible for memory, attention, and motivation. And these regions all talk to each other to make decisions about what we are seeing in an iterative process."
"We likely experience pareidolia because when something in the environment has face-like features, these features automatically ping the visual cortex, which sends a signal that propagates throughout the brain to query what it thinks we are seeing. Although the visual cortex very quickly realizes it’s made a mistake, the rest of the brain likely makes the decision that, truth aside, the tree trunk or the cup of coffee does look a lot like a face."
My Friend Found A Tree Within A Tree
Looks like atiny person walking up to the tree hill too just below it. But anyone getting Winnie The Pooh vibes from the way that tree looks?
Glasslands. Chinese Rice Fields From Above Takes Form Of Stained Glass. One Giant Artistic Puzzle
Wife Took This Photo, She Pointed Out That The Base Of The Antlers Looks Like Cat Paws. Can't Unsee
One of the most popular examples of pareidolia is the Shroud of Turin, a cloth bearing the image of a man — which some believe to be Jesus — who appears to have suffered trauma consistent with crucifixion.
The negative image was first observed in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia, who was allowed to photograph it while it was being displayed in the Turin Cathedral.
Some visitors to St. Mary's in Rathkeale, Ireland, say a tree stump outside of the church resembles a silhouette of the Virgin Mary.
Others think that damage to the Pedra da Gávea, an enormous rock outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created an impression of a human face.
The Way This Tree Stump Has A Cityscape On It
I Found Dust In My Wine Glass When I Set It Down Next To My Lamp. It Looks Like A Galaxy
Hopefully it's only dust, and you saw this while drinking alone😳
The Most Beautiful Ice Cave I’ve Ever Explored In Iceland. It Looks Like A Massive Frozen Wave
i wonder how to formed like that, or how it changed to create that shape
The Way This Ice Has Formed Looks Like A Tiny Forest
Then there are the images taken in 1976 by the Viking 1 mission, which supposedly showed a face on Mars that could have been the remnants of an ancient civilization.
Some even find ways to profit off of pareidolia. Diane Duyser of Miami, for example, sold a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich, which she said bore the image of Jesus, for $28,000 on eBay in 2004.
A more unfortunate case occurred a few years later. A cinnamon bun bearing a likeness of Mother Teresa was first discovered at the Bongo Java Café in Belmont, Tennessee, but after being on display for about 10 years, it was stolen on Christmas day in 2007.
The Way The Light Hits This Spiderweb Makes It Look Like A CD-ROM
We have a number of theories as to the cause of this phenomenon. Some say pareidolia provides a psychological determination for many delusions that involve the senses—they believe pareidolia could be behind numerous sightings of UFOs, Elvis and the Loch Ness Monster, and the hearing of disturbing messages on records when they are played backward.
This Tree Looks Like Broccoli
This Landscape Looks Like Someone Just Dropped A Green Quilted Blanket On The Earth
Was At The Beach And Found A Shell With Barnacles On It That Make It Look Like An Anatomically Correct Heart
My Daughter. Dad, It Looks Like A Giant Piece Of Pizza. I’ll Be The Round Pepperoni
American cosmologist and author Carl Sagan believed that pareidolia was a survival tool. In his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark, he argued that this ability to recognize faces from a distance or in poor visibility was an important survival technique. While this instinct enables humans to instantly judge whether an oncoming person is a friend or foe, Sagan highlighted that it could result in some misinterpretation of random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.
Dr. Jess Taubert thinks that facial pareidolia is so evident because our brain has a strong sense of what a face is.
"From the moment we are born we orient towards faces and face-like patterns so, by the time we are fully grown, we have had a lot of practice detecting faces."
The Top Of My Car Covered In Morning Rain Looks Like A Field Of Sunset Jewels
Proud Daddy With His New Litter
Found A Treble Clef In My Arby’s Curly Fries Once
Dust From A Ramp On My Suede Rollerskates Looks Like An X-Ray Of My Feet
Leonardo da Vinci, on the other hand, thought pareidolia was an artistic device. "If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills," he wrote in a passage in one of his extensive notebooks.
The Area I Used To Work In Washington Looks Like Jurassic Park
Rainbow In Front Of My House Looks Like Another Planet
Used Match Looks Exactly Like A Mic Stand
A Suspicious-Looking Cloud
We have practical uses for pareidolia, too. Remember the Rorschach inkblot test? It is a projective psychological assessment developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach to measure thought disorders for the purpose of identifying mental illness. (It was inspired by the observation that schizophrenia patients often interpret the things they see in unusual ways.)
This Geode Looks Like An Ocean Waves On The Beach
The Melting Snow On This Chair Looks Like A Tree
This Stick I Found Looks Like A Burning Torch, Flame Included
Paint the flame red and orange, gather some friends with pitchforks and go yell at someone's house.
The Pizza Saver On My Pizza Makes The Photo Look Like A Video With A Play Button
I clicked it… and wondered why there could be videos uploaded to BP
My Painter Dad Making The Soup Looking Like Edvard Munch's "The Scream"
I threw a piece of bread out for the birds and they did this bread-scre...46ef72.jpg
Splitting Firewood And Found A Piece Resembling The Sky In "The Starry Night"
When You Try To Make Peppermint Swirl Soap And It Comes Out Looking Like Raw Meat
The Feet On This Bench At My Gym Look A Lot Like An Impaled iPhone
Ladies And Gentlemen, I Present To You - Pizza Rock
Tea Tree Oil Looks Like A Tree
This is at the end of lake Cakora in brooms head. It happened after the storm at the beach side of the lake broke out. It drained most of the water. As it drains out a connecting lake with tea trees on the banks, the high tides push the tea tree oily water back up the lake to create these stunning natural masterpieces.
Found A Patch Of Moss Behind A Loading Dock That Looks Like A Tiny Tropical Island With A Palm Tree
My Cat Fell Asleep Looking Like He's Standing Up
The Clear Ice In My Absinthe Looks Like A Chunk Was Cut Out Of It
Volcanic Explosion On The Lid
I Put Another Type Of Shower Gel On Top Of The Old One Without Stirring, And After A Few Pumps They Start "Raining" Down. Looks Like Melted Wax
I Thought This Agate Looked Like A Separate Landscape
The Way The Mud Froze On My Truck Looks Like A Painting Of The Forrest
The Sediment From This Chemical Reaction Looks Like A Marshy Forest
Found A Piece Of Rock That Looks Like A Steak
This Cicada I Found Looks Like It Has The McDonald's Logo On Its Head
This Cluster Of Golden Oyster Mushrooms Looks Like Covid-19
My Pizza Stone Looks Like A Moon
My Cauliflower Looks Like An Atomic Mushroom Cloud
This Ice Patch I Found That Looks Like A Feather
The Post Paint Chipped Into The Map
This Window Inside The Fairmont Lake Louise Looks Like A Painting
Capturing Fireworks With A Fast Exposure Makes Them Look Like A Space Nebula
Saw The Sunrise In This Parking Garage And It Almost Looks Like A Mural. San Antonio, TX
Bert? Is That You?
The Gap Between My Window And Shades Made The Perfect Glowing Little Number 1
Someone Bumped Into A Wall At Work And Made A Painting Of A Snowy Town
If You Can See The Beach, Ocean, Sky, Rocks And Stars, Then You Are An Artist, But It's Not A Painting. It's Lower Part Of The Car Gate Which Needs To Be Repaired
Abandoned Grain Elevator, Adrian, TX. Looks Like A Giant USB Stick
Upside Down, The Bulls Logo Looks Like A Robot Making Love To A Crab
Tottenham Hotspur’s Football Stadium Looks Like A Flying Saucer From A Distance
My Coffee Looks Like Jupiter
The View Out Of Our Door Looks Like A Painting
Happy Cat Mama
My Girlfriend Found This Rock That Looks Like A Moustache
The View From This Ballroom Looks Like An AT-AT Construction Site
A Vine Grew Around This Little Tree And The Tree Absorbed It, Making It Look Like A Snake Had Woven Itself Around The Tree
My Sliced Bacon Looks Pixelated
Apartment Hallway In Dallas, TX Looks Like A Scene From The Titanic
Clouds Looked Like A Map Of The World
My Coworker's Phone Cord Made A Treble Clef
The Roof Turned Into A Keyboard
My Girlfriend's Scrubber Looks Like It's Trying To Impersonate My Bluetooth Speaker
I Found A Puffball Mushroom That Resembles The Moon
Toasting Some Sesame Seeds And When I Stopped Swirling The Pan And Pac-Man Appeared
Mountains Look Like Waves In The Middle Of The Ocean
The Branch On Top Of This Pine Tree In Sydney Looks Like A Perfect Star
This Rock I Found Looks Like A Speech Bubble
Looks Like The Truck Is Carrying The KFC
My Bruise Kinda Looks Like A Nebula In Space
Dear gods!! You sure it's not a fissure? Not sure how it would behave/feel on the femur, but I had one near my ankle, and my doc took a while to notice it. I still walked on it until he told me, but the pain was stupidly bad. I thought it was a sprain. Your bruise looks worse. I hope you are ok now.
The Wall On The Bridge Looks Like Its Own Mini Landscape
Glass Mark Looks Like A Bike
We Found A Pill Bug That Looks Like An Actual Pill Capsule
Oh, we call these slaters, or roly polys, or butchie boys. They have a lot of names here
These Chocolate Chip Cookies Look Like Scoops Of Ice Cream
My Banana Has A Bruise That Looks Like A Musical Note
The Crack On My Wife’s Windshield Looks Like An Airplane From The Front
imagine being a passenger and not seeing it till your on the highway
This Concrete Post At Our Playground Looks Like A Moon
These Tree Branches That Look Like A Spiderweb
One Of The Eggs I Poached This Morning Came Out Looking Like A Human Heart
Crystal My Brother Found That Kinda Looks Like A Bean Burrito
Wood Splinters That Look Like A City
Someone Told Me My Workshop Materials Cart Looks Like Manhattan
This Flower I Found Looks Like A Galaxy
My Thick Glasses Lenses Look Like Ice Cubes
Found This Interesting Bug That Looks Like Moss
Sand Dune Looks Like A Ski Area Out In Utah
Bubbles In My Bath Look Like An Icy River
After Cutting A Stick Of Butter, The Residue Looks Like A Winter Nature Scene, Stream And All
My Steak Looks Like America
View From The Cafe I Was In Almost Looks Like A Picture Hanging On The Wall
Wilted Flower Looks Like The Eggplant Emoji
My Stepdad Grows His Own Vegetables, And A Cucumber Grew In A Question Mark Shape
Pan Fried Brussel Sprout Looks Like A Tunnel
The Shower Glass In My Hotel Room Looks Like The Matrix
I see the card catalogue system for the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. It was the trippiest looking card catalogue system I had ever seen.
This Tree Looks Like It's Covered In Skin
The Cracks On This Screen Protector Look Like A Valley
This Piece Of Metal At My Barn That Rusted Into A Nuclear Detonation
The End Of This Banana Looks Like A Burnt Match
Ripped Tights Looking Like A City Skyline
This Car Protection Film Now Looks Like A Densely Populated City Map
This Spider’s Abdomen Looks Like An M&M
My Wineglass Broke In The Shape Of Australia
Molten Sugar From The Domino's Sugar Storage Fire Looks Like A Lava Flow
Fermentation In The Beer Well Looks Like A Brain
The Way This Broken Metal Latch Rusted Makes It Look Like Wood On The Inside
The Sun Reflecting On My Drying Dishes Looks Like Saturn
I Found A Stone At The Beach That Looks Like A Loaf Of Bread
Rock That Looks Like A Smartphone
This Propane Tank Where I Work Was Just Painted To Look Like A Watermelon
This Sun Reflection Through My Window Is Shaped Like A Sword
This Kitchen Counter Along With An Empty Drinking Glass Sort Of Looks Like A Death Star In Space
This Old Brick At My House Looks Like A Youtube Play Button
Shadows Of A Spiral Ring Binding Look Like Seismograph Registers
The Snow On My Mom's Lawn Looks Like Florida
Dried Watermelon Looks Like Pizza
tell yourself it tastes like pizza too and then maybe you can convince yourself it tastes good lol
Moldy Orange That Looks Like A Planet
Forgot About A Can Of Wolf-Brand Chili In The Back Of Fridge And The Mold Growing Looks Like Wolf Hair
Birds Outside Were Drying Themselves And Ended Up Looking Like Arrows
This Pumpkin Looks Like A Mushroom
My Beer Bubbles Look Like The U.S.
Right like the first 5 I have seen on B P before .
Load More Replies...Right like the first 5 I have seen on B P before .
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