Trippy optical illusion

August 28, 2006 1:31 PM

Your daily dose of perception-bending. Stare at the center of this video (wmv or flash) for a minute or two then look away from the screen at your surroundings. You'll experience an interesting and somewhat disconcerting effect. Not appropriate for anyone prone to headaches or seizures.
posted by brain_drain (51 comments total)

P.S. This is not a screaming zombie scare trick or anything like that. Really.
posted by brain_drain at 1:32 PM on August 28, 2006

It's a screaming zombie trick!
posted by beno at 1:35 PM on August 28, 2006

It's all wrinkly! Auuugh!
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:35 PM on August 28, 2006

Fun. And indeed, not a screaming zombie scare trick.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:36 PM on August 28, 2006

Wow, the money I'm gonna save on acid! Thanks!
posted by OneOliveShort at 1:37 PM on August 28, 2006

ugh, how long does it take to stop... woah.
posted by GuyZero at 1:37 PM on August 28, 2006

that is crazy.
posted by chunking express at 1:41 PM on August 28, 2006

everything's all watery.
posted by glenwood at 1:42 PM on August 28, 2006

FLASHBACK!
posted by MaxVonCretin at 1:42 PM on August 28, 2006

Whoa, trippy.
posted by amro at 1:43 PM on August 28, 2006

wow. that's my new favorite optical illusion (replacing this one, which is still really cool)! thanks! although i kind of have a headache now.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:43 PM on August 28, 2006

Odd, this came up in Ask.Mefi earlier today. On that guy's site is the same tool/thing but bigger. I would assume he was the original creator of it.
posted by cusack at 1:44 PM on August 28, 2006

And here comes the headache.
posted by amro at 1:45 PM on August 28, 2006

Am I crazy or was this somewhere on the blue within the last month or so? (HonestConsternationFilter)
posted by shownomercy at 1:45 PM on August 28, 2006

And yeah, it's a bit headache inducing.
posted by chunking express at 1:50 PM on August 28, 2006

Double. Someone else look it up. I'm not sorting through all the hits for "optical illusion". Or, you know, don't, if it's not hurting anything.
posted by Eideteker at 1:50 PM on August 28, 2006

Here's the doubleness, though originally it was a link to a google video.
posted by Mister Cheese at 1:53 PM on August 28, 2006

My hand turned into craly worms.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:54 PM on August 28, 2006

Crawly, rather.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:55 PM on August 28, 2006

Whoops, it is indeed a double. Sorry, folks. As it turns out, if I had searched under the "trippy" tag (which I only added as a jokey afterthought), I would have found it. Ah, well. Enjoy your headaches!
posted by brain_drain at 1:57 PM on August 28, 2006

That's the most realistically "trippy" thing I think I've ever seen.
posted by Bugbread at 1:59 PM on August 28, 2006

Sir, I don't care about your black magic or you using the internets to spread it, but KEEP IT OFF MY DAMN SURROUNDINGS!

And I don't know about anyone else here, but to me it was like an eternity staring at the screen for a quite mild effect. Yeah, stuff was moving and everything, but that one with the black/white picture turning colour took only a few secons for a full minute of is-this-black-magic fun...

Anyway, I'll try it again when I'm drunk. Maybe I'll throw up.
posted by qvantamon at 1:59 PM on August 28, 2006

Speaking of these sorts of illusions, any Guitar Hero players out there? You get can get crazy psychedelic warping effects better than this, from playing GH and then looking away.
posted by stenseng at 2:00 PM on August 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Isn't this like those spinning tops you get, where you look at them and then look at the back of your hand and it looks like worms are crawling under your skin?
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:02 PM on August 28, 2006

FYI, this is called the motion aftereffect.
posted by mano at 2:03 PM on August 28, 2006

Diffeomorphism! That's the word I was looking for.
posted by Eideteker at 2:04 PM on August 28, 2006

Ok, that was just a little uncomfortable: I'm looking at this video, and a coworker comes up to ask me something, and when I look at him, his face is doing the liquid mushroom wave, and for a split second I think "oh, shit, I can't talk to him, I'm stoned at work!" before my brain kicks in and says "No, only your eyes are stoned. Your brain is working just fine."
posted by Bugbread at 2:06 PM on August 28, 2006

You see? That's what Scientology's like!
posted by Navelgazer at 2:10 PM on August 28, 2006

Fuck. I am apparently "prone to headaches." Ow ow ow ow ow.
posted by Zozo at 2:18 PM on August 28, 2006

Didn't work for me, I need real drugs. Skins up some nice skunk.
posted by Joeforking at 2:19 PM on August 28, 2006

I second the Guitar Hero shoutout, stenseng, and the effect is much stronger than what came out of this video. Probably the combination of a much longer duration, and completely unblinking video game super-concentration.
posted by davidnin at 2:24 PM on August 28, 2006

I need real drugs. Skins up some nice skunk.

Wait till this current drought reaches your part of the world, Joeforking. Then you'll be grateful for all the optical illusions you can lay your hands on.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:35 PM on August 28, 2006

Wow! Thanks, that just fixed all that weird crap I've been seeing since 92.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 2:37 PM on August 28, 2006

Isn't this an example of subliminal advertising, where buy pepsi they trick you into watching a pepsi is good seemingly pepsi innoccuous pVeidpseoi and all of a sudden need pepsi you have an uncanny desire pepsi make me happy to buy their no pepsi=pain goods, subverting pepsi=life the whole pepsi, I mean point of the soft thirst quenching drink, I mean of you watching the soda pppppppepeeeeeeeeppppppsssssiiiiiiiii?
posted by lalochezia at 2:38 PM on August 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

it looks like worms are crawling under your skin?

Looks Like? No, those were real.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:49 PM on August 28, 2006

A third vote for the Guitar Hero effect. I came to post just to mention this very phenomenon - it makes my carpet flow along like the fretboard.
posted by Chuckly at 3:27 PM on August 28, 2006

That was amusing, but the effect went away after about 5 seconds.
posted by clevershark at 4:05 PM on August 28, 2006

I just lost the game.
posted by trinarian at 4:24 PM on August 28, 2006

my barbie poster is moving !
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:29 PM on August 28, 2006

I'm peaking, man, I'm peaking!
posted by Busithoth at 5:04 PM on August 28, 2006

No effect on moi
posted by A189Nut at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2006

Excellent, excellent. This and things like it should be a part of every child's learning. Parents, please share this with your children, and be discuss it with them.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:28 PM on August 28, 2006

I trust that this isn't going to cause one of those 20-years-later acid flashbacks when I'm sitting around with the grandkids...
posted by R. Mutt at 6:50 PM on August 28, 2006

Fourthing Guitar Hero. Everything scrolls up for several minutes everytime I look away.
posted by djeo at 7:44 PM on August 28, 2006

Eideteker:

One of the greatest problems I find about that kind of state (whether chemically or nonchemically induced as above), is that in many cases the person experiencing the diffeomorphisms tries to find the origin: here's a fixed point which is left invariant by the transformations which they're experiencing, and can't, because there isn't one.
posted by oonh at 8:53 PM on August 28, 2006

There was a magazine that ran a graphic that you cut out, put on your turntable (it's something we had back when we had vinyl) and simulated the same effects. Might have been one of those funky sci mags like "Omni" or some such. That was neat tho'
posted by Smedleyman at 9:14 PM on August 28, 2006

Maybe I did it wrong -- no real affect. (I can get better effects from meditation.)
posted by Surfurrus at 12:11 AM on August 29, 2006

That's pretty cool, but it'd be cooler if it lasted longer than it took to set up. The effect only lasted about 20 seconds for me.
posted by twine42 at 5:27 AM on August 29, 2006

Wow man, I saw God.
posted by MotherTucker at 9:50 AM on August 29, 2006

FYI, people, you don't have to look at the adapting pattern for the whole time for the effect to work. The adaptation/effect becomes stronger the longer you look, but theres a law of diminishing returns at work here, you cant look at the effect for 10 min and have the aftereffect last that much longer.

Try it, look at the pattern for a variable amount of time, then look away. Also, for hours of fun, just run the pattern on loop, and you can also quickly readapt when the effect ceases by looking back to the pattern briefly, then looking away.
posted by mano at 10:12 AM on August 29, 2006

Holy crap. My books are moving.
posted by deborah at 12:20 PM on August 29, 2006