A mind-blowing experience.
click here to see a larger version of this image
Look at this image full screen on your computer. A screen at least 20″ wide is best. It is necessary to click on the larger version to experience the how your brain can interpret this image in 2 different ways, and stare at it for a while.
Do you see 1) mounded rivers and bubbles or 2) normal rivers and craters?
Note that you won’t see it as option 1 if you only view it on a cell phone.
It can be either. It can be both. It depends on what you mind perceives. It can help to see it both ways if you move closer and then further back from the screen.
If you focus on the group of craters slightly below the center of the screen it can help turn them into bubbles and the rest of the image is changed – all the craters become bubbles and all the rivers become mounded.
What is the truth?
Is this a view of the moon or some natural phenomenon on earth?
Is the light source from the left or right?
Our perception is constantly updating, using what we see, versus what we remember, versus what we expect. It is the dance between these which gives us our sense of reality.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
People have initially responded to this image without seeing the 2 ways our brains can interpret the image, so I am explaining it here.
It is not an AI image in any way. It is as faithful a reproduction of the raw image captured as was possible.
I took the photo at a sand beach just before sunset (with the sun on the right). I was at around 20mm with a zoom lens, with my tripod locked and the lens about 3 feet from the sand, pointing down on an angle.
The patterns in the image were created from water seeping out of the sand and moving very slowly from the bottom of the frame to the top. All the circular/oval shapes are depressions as well as all other river-like patterns.
When I looked at the image the first time I viewed it small on the screen and I saw it for what it is – all of the patterns are depressions in the sand, and the light source from the right gives the appropriate shadows.
But then I viewed it large and stared for a while trying to think of a good name for this abstract image. That is when all of the patterns became raised according to my brain’s interpretation of the image. I noticed that if the pattern was raised in reality and the light source was from the left (instead of the right) the shadows would make sense. Our brain can see it as making sense this way.
MULTISTABLE PERCEPTION: Photographs of craters, from either the moon or other planets including our own, can exhibit this phenomenon. Craters in stereo vision, such as our eyes, normally appear concave. However, in monocular presentations, such as photographs, the elimination of our depth perception causes multistable perception, which can cause the craters to look like plateaus rather than pits. “Multistable perception” is defined as the spontaneous alternation between two or more perceptual states that occurs when sensory information is ambiguous.