Car door and the beach.
Ancient sage Obi-Wan Kenobi once remarked, "Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them." Well, he's right. Kinda.
Our eyes bring in information and it's our brain's job to decipher the image and determine what we're seeing. But our brains aren't always correct. In fact, sometimes they can be so wrong we wonder if we are accurately interpreting reality at all.
After all, our brains can only label things if it knows that they are. If you lived on a deserted island your whole life and a cow showed up on the beach, you'd have no idea what to label it.
The latest baffling image that's making people across the Internet doubt their senses is a picture tweeted out by X (formerly Twitter) user nayem. "If you can see a beach, ocean sky, rocks and stars then you are an artist," the comment reads.
But some people who see it also think it looks like a car door. What do you see?
Beach or a rusty door?
via nxyxm / Twitter
If your brain told you the picture is of a lovely evening laying on the beach then you're definitely an optimist. But, according to the person who posted it, the photo is of the bottom of a rusted out car door. Not very romantic, is it?
The tweet has since gone viral, earning over 5,000 likes.
via nxym /Twitter
Here's what Twitter users thought about the illusion.
Yum.
via X/Twitter.
This guy must be hungry.
Knowing the difference through skills.
via Twitter.
Your perception determines your reality.
Drawing skills.
via Twitter.
This guy explains it perfectly.
Boat on the beach.
via Twitter.
This guy has a great imagination.
So, what's going on?
This photo is just another optical illusion, and it can help us learn a lot about our brains. As mentioned, our eyes and other senses gather information and send it to our brains. From there, our brains create our perception of the world, but it doesn't always reflect reality. According to the American Museum of Natural History, this means is that when the brain is presented with incomplete information, it "fills in the gaps" to create an image or understanding where there wasn't one before. Even more interesting, since no two brains are totally alike, people tend to see optical illusions differently. Research suggests that cultural factors, experiences, and how we process visual information all account for why two people may look at the same illusion and have totally different takeaways.
Neat!
This article originally appeared four years ago.