Scary Optical Illusions and Magic Tricks
The human eye is a complex organ. Rods, refractor lenses and photosensitive pores allow for imagery and light to filter in and out. Our eye sends pulsations through our nervous system, and our brain generates the imagery before us. Tricking this complex organ involves exploiting the mixtures of different shapes and colors in an image, to create an optical illusion to trick the human eye.
Some of the scariest optical tricks involve the focusing of the lenses of the eye. Many scary optical illusions instruct the user to focus on a certain point of the picture, and blink a few times to achieve the effect. You then look to a wall, and see the image that was just on the screen appear on the wall beside you. Since the human brain has the tendency to associate images with patterns of formerly observed behavior (schemata), it is easy for us to see an image, and perceive a sound, a smell, or otherwise.
One would think that the human eye was too complex to be able to be affected by scary optical illusions, but the use of techniques such as heavy color contrast and EMS (eye motion sensitivity) can help to create a more realistic, frightening, or even mind-boggling optical trick.
Many skeptics of supernatural theory have stated that sightings of ghosts and aliens are a result of tricks from the human eye. Research has shown that the human eye loses the ability to properly focus on objects in dark places. Even after twenty minutes of exposure to the darkness—the time that it takes for the human eye to fully open the rods in the iris—a great amount of visual perception is lost when the lights go out.
Adapting these scientific techniques, we can create scary optical illusions that fool the mind. While most flash lights emit white or blue light, the human eye actually sees best in the darkness when red light is used; red light enhances our night vision and focus in the darkness. An image with heavy red and black contrast appears extremely flat to the human eye, while a blue and red image appears to leap off of the page. This is a result of the high contrast between the colors blue and red on the color wheel; for this same reason, 3-D glasses use red and blue lenses to trick our eyes into thinking that the images on the movie are popping out on the screen. While the classic use of color contrast is the most fundamental way to achieve scary and lifelike optical illusions, new techniques have been adapted to create images that seemingly spin or jump off of the page Diagonal lines can be integrated with contrasting colors to trick the human eye into thinking that an image is spinning. Because of the color contrast used, on top of the bent line, the image will appear to be slowly spinning on the page as a result of our brain processing information.
While the human eye is truly a remarkable organ, it is also extremely easy to trick!