Monday, February 11, 2008

Crazy brain trick-Which way is the dancer spinning?

Some of you may have seen this, but I found this crazy article and had to post about it. It absolutely weirds me out!!

Check it out: here
I stared at it for like 10 minutes and could only see her going clockwise, then I looked away and looked back again and she was going counterclockwise...

At first I thought it was timed to change directions periodically until I had Chris come over and he could only see counterclockwise, while I could only see clockwise!!

How is it possible that we are looking at the same thing-yet seeing something completely different??

Brains are crazy, fantastic things!

Which way does she spin for you?

4 comments:

napalmbrain said...

If you stare at her feet, or better yet there's a reflection of her feet at the very bottom, you can control which way you see her spin.

Crazy!

Speaking of weird, when you have an hour to listen to this, listen to this:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200712214

Sarah said...

Pete, I try and try and can't make her change direction!!!

Aaron & Amy Norton said...

crazy! it's only when I looked away to my left that I was able to make her change directions. she was going counter forever and i thought "ok i'm a left brainer" than i started to read the list on the left and i looked back and suddenly she was going counter, i kinda freaked myself out!! nuts-but i love it!

Sarah said...

Oh! What trickeration! I can finally get her to go both ways. At first look, she always goes clockwise for me-but if I look at her with my peripheral vision and visualize her going counterclockwise-then I see counterclockwise,but the second I look at her foot I lose focus and she goes clockwise again!

p.s. how is it that I am still obsessed with this?

p.p.s. also-why am I commenting on my own blog?