This morning an optical illusion caught my eye.
On the glass front of the picture hanging on the wall there was a reflection of light originating from the outside. The reflection could either be seen as part of the picture or as coming from outside.
I played around with this visual phenomenon a couple of minutes noticing the subtle nuances of the experience and started pondering…
(Since that particular optical illusion was difficult to capture, I share a different one from wiki commons)
Can you switch the perspective of the cube from outside to inside and vice versa?
After doing so for a while:
In the moment of switching and fixating on a chosen perspective, do you notice any side effects on any of the three plains (i.e. bodily, emotionally, mentally)?
Are subtle forms of contraction involved in the process of perception?
Is any perspective more real than the other, if so, why/how?
Are these visual phenomena real or unreal, or both or none of the above?
Thanks for posting @KhyungMar. Got me thinking. I went downstairs and looked at my Magic Eye pyramids print and thought about your questions. I definitely felt contractions but more like “focusing” contractions, like when I squint my eyes to see something without my glasses, or when I focus my hearing to hear a quiet beep from an indoor smoke detector almost in need of a new battery. I watched THE FATHER, with Anthony Hopkins, about a man with dementia—which is full of contractions and of course, memory lapses. I asked my daughter to watch it, being a therapist and perhaps having some patients who may be at that stage or maybe some people with elder parents. So with that preface, looking at your questions:
In the moment of switching and fixating on a chosen perspective, do you notice any side effects on any of the three plains (i.e. bodily, emotionally, mentally)? There is always some sort of energy fluctuation or change of direction
Are subtle forms of contraction involved in the process of perception? If changes are contractions, then yes.
Is any perspective more real than the other, if so, why/how? Real? I’d rephrase and ask "which sticks in memory more? Does remembering something make it more real?
Are these visual phenomena real or unreal, or both or none of the above? Yes
What is the essential nature of these phenomena? Ephemeral, smoky and impossible to grasp
How does this connect to dream perceptions? In a way, dream practices are a preamble to waking consciousness and shouldinform them, though they are usually dismissed as after-thoughts instead of before-thoughts.
How could this connect to daytime perceptions? The shifting of focus in any of these activities can serve to frame and refocus other activities. Space (The Final Frontier).
@_Barry So cool that you engaged in these questions and shared your thoughts; that’s one of the main reasons why I enjoy this forum of inquisitive people here on night club.
I love the Magic Eye images and have a couple myself! But… I perhaps they are not so fitting for this experiment since the eyes need to focus with a certain “tension” in order for the image to appear.
Yes I can see both illusions, the one previously posted and this one. My take on the Magic eye was about the perception-side of things and how easily we can miss the forest for the trees or the spot on the wall that people swear is Mother Mary and the baby Jesus. The steadiness and awareness to accept things as they are—and as you frequently post about—is so beautiful to aspire to manifest or whatever it is that takes place—or doesn’t!
For example with the original picture I posted (the cube thing):
when you switch perspective from inside to outside, does this perspective have a certain feel to it? Kind of a like a bouquet of a red wine which allows for differentiation to a similar red wine with a subtly different bouquet?
UPDATED: It definitely has a different perspective. I would also wait a couple of minutes and then try to look at it the inverted way first. I could do it, but it was an effort. Contraction can be self-directed, almost like concentration but it feels different. For me, contraction feels like tightening both mental and physical.
UPDATE:
Reminds me of something I read about awareness here.
