Monsters DO exist…

Even if they are all in your head.

Your brain makes them, you see…

If only to entertain us.

[via io9] An Optical Illusion that Explains the Origins of Imaginary Monsters

It seems that the brain, in specific situations, literally gets bored and starts scaring you. The easiest way to prove this is to perform the simple experiment of looking steadily into a mirror, for a few minutes at a time. Soon, you’re very likely to see a monster. That monster is a combination of your face and your brain. Does that make it better or worse?

[...]

The brain, when faced with a lot of stimulation, only some of which is considered relevant, will tune out the non-relevant parts, filling in what it can from the general area. It’s a little like how the blind spot works, except this is a dynamic process. The brain will zoom in on a desired area, and the rest of the space will fade away. This is called the Troxler Effect, or Troxler Fading. It was discovered way back in 1804 by Ignaz Troxler, a physician and philosopher. [...]

[...] A paper in Perception outlines an experiment in which people were asked to stare into a mirror, in low light, for ten minutes. They do not sound like a fun ten minutes, according to the report.

The descriptions differed greatly across individuals and included: (a) huge deformations of one’s own face (reported by 66% of the fifty participants); (b) a parent’s face with traits changed (18%), of whom 8% were still alive and 10% were deceased; (c) an unknown person (28%); (d) an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor (28%); (e) an animal face such as that of a cat, pig, or lion (18%); (f ) fantastical and monstrous beings (48%).

The Troxler Effect fades out features that a person isn’t directly staring at. Those features are filled in with what’s around them. It works on a white background, but a face looks horrifying when, for example, a slice of forehead and cheek are subbed in for an eye. Plus, the effect doesn’t stay in one place. The Troxler Effect wanders over the entire face, distorting it massively. The person then often instinctively turns those distortions into things that they can actually recognize, even if it scares them. This is how mirror monsters, like Bloody Mary, develop. The brain gets tired of processing the mundane and, accidentally, cooks up a monster to entertain us. Via MoIllusions, Psych World, and Perception. [Read More]

And by ‘entertain us’…

I mean to:

• en·ter·tain  (ntr-tn) v. en·ter·tained, en·ter·tain·ing, en·ter·tains v.tr. 1. To hold the attention of with something amusing or diverting.

I mean, you know…

Without the amusement.

Your mind is a twisted place and by stepping away from the mirror, you can escape the monsters your brain creates.

However, only some of us…

Are not that lucky!

A Horror Movie that Knows the Scariest Thing is Losing Your Mind - When newlywed Molly Reynolds returns to her long-abandoned family home, reminders of a nightmarish childhood begin seeping into her new life.

For those unfortunate few?

They cannot escape the insanity…

That our brain rages to twistedly ‘entertain us’ & all with a perceived reality that no one else can see.