Optical Illusions So Crazy You’ll Blink Twice in Disbelief

Bright Side

Get ready to question your eyes and your brain! 🤯 These optical illusions are so wild, they'll have you blinking twice just to make sure you're seeing what you think you're seeing. Is it moving, or is your mind playing tricks on you? Are those colors even real? 🌀🎨 You won’t believe how easily these illusions can mess with your perception of reality. They're fun, frustrating, and totally mind-blowing all at the same time. Dive in and see if you can figure them out—if you dare! 👀✨

Transcript

00:00Wow, something bizarre is about to go down.

00:03Focus on this cross right here.

00:05Ignore the wild celebrity roulette spinning around the edges.

00:09And whatever you do, don't blink.

00:11Just keep staring at the cross in the middle.

00:14Now tell me, do you notice how our favorite stunning celebrities

00:17are starting to look like something out of a monster movie?

00:21No special effects are happening here.

00:23Trust me, all of this is purely in your mind.

00:26So when you're presented with a series of eye-aligned photos,

00:30one after the other, your brain kind of glitches,

00:33mixing them up and making them look distorted.

00:36Before you know it, even the most flawless features of Hollywood's Barbie and Ken,

00:41I mean Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling,

00:43begin to look twisted, squashed, or stretched.

00:46Ooh, the chills!

00:47Here we have an animation of four faces flipping between Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato.

00:53But are you ready for a spin?

00:55These faces will keep switching back and forth between the two of them,

00:59but now they'll also be spinning in a circle.

01:02Fix your gaze on this cross and resist the urge to look away.

01:06If you stay focused right on the center,

01:09you'll find it almost impossible to spot the morphing between their faces.

01:13The transition seems delayed, like it's barely happening.

01:17But the moment we stop the spinning motion,

01:19BAM!

01:20It's pretty clear that the morphing animation was happening the whole time at the same speed.

01:27Meet the rotating rays illusion.

01:29If you're seeing what I'm seeing,

01:31the outer ring looks like it's moving clockwise,

01:34while the inner ring seems to spin counterclockwise.

01:37But what's strange about it is that these circles aren't moving at all.

01:42Our eye movements play a huge role in creating this effect.

01:45I mean, when you keep shifting your gaze around the image,

01:48the illusion of motion continues.

01:50But can we make things more interesting

01:53by placing a picture of Kim Kardashian right in the center?

01:56Focus just on her face and try your best not to blink.

02:00Notice how the ring seemed to slow down or even stop?

02:04Bizarre, huh?

02:05This illusion was created by a Japanese professor

02:08known for designing tons of mind-bending illusions.

02:12Like this one,

02:13where it looks like rollers with blue dots are turning towards each other.

02:16Or this one,

02:17where yellow rings seem to move up and down,

02:20almost as if they're getting closer together.

02:22But again, these aren't animations or GIFs.

02:26The motion is only happening in your mind.

02:31The painting The Scream is scary on its own.

02:34But one optical illusion can make it even weirder,

02:38practically bringing it to life.

02:40If we throw in a little zooming in-and-out motion

02:43to Munch's iconic work,

02:45the haunting face seems to grow and shrink,

02:48almost as if it's jumping out at you.

02:50It makes the scream feel all too real, right?

02:53Now, of course, this after-effect illusion isn't just for paintings.

02:57We can do the same with a photo from Rihanna's concert.

03:00Fix your gaze on the middle of the image,

03:02and you'll start to see her move,

03:05almost like you're getting a front-row seat to a live performance.

03:08All right, maybe it's not quite as cool as seeing Rihanna actually perform,

03:12but it's still pretty awesome.

03:15Next, we have this pretty ordinary checkerboard image.

03:18But I'll ask you to pay special attention to the squares

03:22marked with the letters A and B.

03:24So, are they the same color or different?

03:27Most people confidently say that square A is darker and B is lighter.

03:32But what's bizarre about it is that they are actually the same exact shade of gray.

03:37Ooh, one of 50 shades of gray?

03:40Heh, sorry, I couldn't help it.

03:42Anyway, how does this magic happen?

03:44Well, the square labeled B is sitting in the shadow of that cylinder.

03:48Your brain automatically thinks,

03:50hey, shadows make things darker.

03:52So, it brightens square B to adjust for the shadow,

03:56while square A, which is outside of the shadow, is left as it is.

04:02Let's talk about the paperclip illusion.

04:05If you take a simple grid and add perfectly straight diagonal lines,

04:09something strange happens.

04:11They look bent or kinked.

04:12It's called the paperclip illusion,

04:15because some people think that the lines resemble a row of paperclips.

04:18Can't see it?

04:19Well, there is a way to fix that.

04:21If you look at the image from the corner of your eye,

04:24the effect gets stronger.

04:26So, let's put a photo of Timothee Chalamet in the corner.

04:29Fix your gaze on him,

04:31and in your peripheral vision,

04:33you'll notice those straight lines now seem bent,

04:36like a bunch of paperclips floating around.

04:38Can you see it now?

04:40Another interesting thing is that the effect changes

04:42if you adjust the thickness of the lines.

04:45Make them thicker,

04:46and instead of paperclips,

04:47the illusion shifts to something that looks like chains.

04:50But if we do the opposite,

04:52making the lines thinner,

04:53they'll look more like wavy ribbons.

04:56Here we have photos of two pairs of crocs.

04:59And we can all agree that this one is pink,

05:02and this one is green, right?

05:03Awesome!

05:04But let's make it a bit harder with this new picture.

05:07So, what color are these crocs?

05:10Take a good look and tell me.

05:12Which option do you think you just saw?

05:14Ah, number one, number two, or number three?

05:18Got your answer?

05:20If you guessed option one, you are correct.

05:23These crocs are actually pink,

05:25but they look gray because there's a green filter over the image.

05:29The lighting tricks our eyes into seeing colors differently.

05:32White things, like these socks, turn green,

05:35while pink things, like these crocs, turn a kind of gray.

05:38This color constancy illusion proves just how much lighting can deceive our brains.

05:45There was one more pink illusion for you.

05:48This time, we have an image with a white circle in the middle.

05:51But now, let's add some motion to it.

05:54I know this animation is intense,

05:56but keeps staring at the black X in the center.

05:59Suddenly, that white circle seems to take on a soft pink hue.

06:03It's almost as if the red and white pixels around it are blending together.

06:06A similar thing happens with this red and white checkerboard.

06:10Keep focusing on the black X again right in the center.

06:13And will you notice that when the checkerboard suddenly changes to all white,

06:17the red spaces still might look faintly pink?

06:21One explanation is that when you stare at the X,

06:24your eyes get used to seeing the red and white edges.

06:27This adaptation effect leaves an afterimage in your vision.

06:31And your brain holds onto the red so strongly

06:33that when it's removed, it fills in the white with a touch of pink.

06:40Now, for our final trick, we have an illusion called the Poggendorf triangles.

06:45What do you see when you look at this weird shape?

06:48So, you might see it as two triangles put together.

06:51One here and the other one here, right?

06:53That makes sense.

06:54But that is not the correct answer.

06:57I mean, yeah, there are in fact two triangles in this image,

07:00but not in those positions.

07:01What's happening is that your brain probably thinks

07:04there's an imaginary diagonal line running through them.

07:08Like those two edges are connected in part of a single line.

07:11But the truth is that those edges don't connect at all.

07:15See?

07:15There are actually two distinct lines that don't line up.

07:19Like I said earlier, there are indeed two triangles in this image.

07:23Just not in the way we expect.

07:25Let's separate these shapes and...

07:27Wow, there they are!

07:28This illusion works because when we see objects that are partly hidden,

07:33our brains sort of create imaginary outlines to make things seem more logical.

07:38But those outlines aren't actually there.

07:41The same happens here.

07:43Your brain thinks this image is just bizarre,

07:45then tries to figure it out by filling in the empty spaces in the middle.

07:49So, you end up seeing the gray areas as part of a single translucent rectangle,

07:54which definitely doesn't exist.

07:56Crazy, huh?

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