i love that we and cats share pareidolia (seeing patterns where they dont exist), but instead of seeing faces in everyday objects like us, they see snakes
that computer cord? snake. string? small snake. cucumber? short fat straight snake
snake pareidolia is one of the strongest things in human minds too! people report freezing mid-stride before being consciously aware of a snake in front of them, and the same happens with coiled rope, etc. in humans and other primates. it’s even been proposed that the need to detect snakes was a factor in the development of primates’ insanely good color eyesight
It’s because snakes are wonderful and we must stop and admire them at any cost
Awhile ago, I went to a psychiatrist for some assorted cognitive testing, and one of the tests made my brain argue with itself.
The first page of one test is really simple. It’s about 50 color blocks, arranged in neat rows. The blocks are all either red, blue, or green. You just list them off, in order, as fast as you can.
The second is also really simple. It’s 50 words in black ink, all either “red”, “blue”, or “orange”. Just read the words. Same deal, easy.
The third is where it starts getting tricky. There are words again, and you read what the words say, but the words are printed in red, blue, and green ink, never aligning with what the word says. “Red” printed in blue, for example. That one takes some focusing.
The fourth, again, words in colors, but some of the words are in boxes. You have to say what color the words are, except if the word is in a box, in which case you say the word itself. That one, I could feel the reading part of my brain and the color-recognition part fighting each other. At one point I said “orange”, despite orange being neither a color that was present or a color that could be made with the ones present. The lady gave me a bit of an odd look on that.
It’s kinda fun when your brain stumbles over itself because a seemingly simple task is not going as planned.
Anyone interested in (joining me in?) a rant about “the utterly uncanny valley and terrifying physics of paranormal occurrences” or am I the only one that uses that one as an earmark of When Shit Is Actually Going down?
I went digging through my own blog for this, just to say: I just watched a piece of unfired clay jiggle around wildly and then drop through the concrete sidewalk and my dudes… WTF.
What makes this DOUBLE freaky is the thing I read about how the human brain will just strait up composite stuff and whole-cloth make up visuals to explain seeing (or not seeing) something.
Somehow that piece of greenware that should’ve fallen and shattered was not there anymore… so my Game Dev brain went: Someone turned on noclip and since it’s a physics object it went fucky before dropping through the world model.
I will NEVER actually know where that greenware went. It’s nowhere to be found. Not in the shop, not anywhere else, not in the dozens of bits it should’ve shattered into. It’s not in the grass. It’s not in my hands. It’s not where it was. My brain, however, supplies the happy answer: It’s fine. It just glitched out. Don’t worry about it.
Maybe that’s why paranormal occurrence vocabulary changes over time. Once, it was Fairies and Demons… now it’s video game glitches and signal degradation. Not because it ACTUALLY looks like that, but simply because that’s as close as we can get to something we have zero native ability to process or explain.
Full body shudder.
Full-throated roar of YOU GET IT, YES, IT HAS UPDATED WITH THE TIMES.
BUT THEN SO WTF DID I ACTUALLY SEE?
This is the Lovecraftian stuff – what could I have observed that was so incomprehensible that THAT was the thing my brain covers it with? Should I be grateful my bowl Bethesda’d instead of me actually catching a glimpse of what occurred?
Devil’s advocate: Let’s say I had a little absence seizure or something. Let’s say that stress made me WILDLY hallucinate. Okay. Cool. I’d be behind that 100% AND… not but… AND where the shimmering fuck is my bowl?
This day is fired.
I’m not saying that the Goodly Neighbors made off with a pot that is both an incomplete spell and in a state of transition of it’s own between Formless and Immortal….
……but it’ll show up on your doorstep in approximately three days with a new design addition.
I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (“say bye bus!”) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
I’m glad there’s a teacher version of “accidentally called teacher ‘mom’”
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people “my lord”
One time during family prayer, dad began: “our father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?”
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say ‘Welcome to White Castle, what’s your crave?’) asked, “Welcome to White Castle, what’s your problem?”
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s and the girl said “Welcome to McDonalds” and then just sighed
Somebody in the elevator asked me what floor I lived on, and I answered “please open your books to page eight”, and we just kind of stared at each other, blinking.
i work retail full time and my script gets frequently messy – ill ask the same question twice, or say “$2.60 is your total” while handing back their change, or say “how are you doing today?” instead of “have a good day!” like name it ive bungled it
but anyway, this lady came thru my line buying a book and the review on the front said: “few books are well written, fewer still are important, and this book manages to be both”
as i handed her the bag i was trying to say “thanks, youre all set” and instead my brain mashed up the review and i said “thanks, youre important”
there was this short pause in which i tried to figure out what the fuck id just said. she blinked and then said “oh thank you! youre important too!”
the real kicker was one of my coworkers. when i was relating this story later his response was “at least you said something NICE. last week i accidentally combined ‘youre welcome’ and ‘no problem’ into ‘youre a problem’”
one time, since I used to work as a daycare teacher with preschoolers, i was on my college campus in my gym, and someone was running in the weight room and tripped over a machine and fell, and instead of offering to help, I just stared and said, “This is why we use our walking feet.”
we both sat there for a while until the guy nodded and said, “yeah, okay, i should’ve done that.”
I’ve spent a good chunk of time working in kitchens, so I still will reflexively say shit like “behind” and “coming around” as I maneuver through spaces and around people.
Which, actually, not such a bad thing; I’m a big guy and can come across as imposing pretty easily. The position calls can help defuse that, and also help avoid collisions.
Less good is the time my brain was half functional and I let slip a “coming with a knife” while grocery shopping. THAT took some explaining.
I work in an office and send tens of emails to customers every day. Once my mum asked me to send her a train ticket I had bought for her. I emailed her “Hello mum, as agreed, please find attached the ticked you requested. Thanks, Alex”
i worked as a camp counselor, and i would have the kids tap somewhere on my legs if they needed something because im a pretty tall dude. today asked my cat if he needed something.
I have woken up in a cold sweat saying “is that for here or to go?”
Every time a friend thanks me, and I respond with “gladly” or “my pleasure”, I die completely 1000% inside
I work at a plasma donation center. When processing donors, we call them by name, they walk up to the counter, and then we ask for their name and donor number. One time, instead of saying “Robert” I hollered “Name and donor number!?” into a full waiting room. Three people started announcing their names and donor numbers before we all realized that I fucked up.
In college, I was a barista at Borders (remember Borders, you guys?!) I once drove through Taco Bell on my way home after a shift. When the cashier said, “okay, that’ll be $5.46!” I cheerfully responded, “Do you have a Borders rewards card?”
I have dealt with so many difficult customers over the years that I used to angrily call my dog “Sir” when I was mad at him.
My first job was at my nearest Panera, and after coming home from a ten-hour Sunday morning shift, I was exhausted; but when my mom called me to come downstairs, instead of replying in the grumpy teenagerish tone I usually would, I said in my cheeriest, fakest voice, “Not a problem at all, let me just check with my manager!” before realizing my mistake.
my coworker went to back up the cash registers one time and she had been at customer service right before. when we finish with a customer we have to sometimes get the attention of the next person and will shout “i can get the next person in line!” but instead of saying that she yelled “HI WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH” to everyone in the general area
I have told my dog “no thank you” so many times after working at a preschool
a couple of times i’ve gotten stuck in a hello how are you good how are you good how are you loop with an equally tired Fred Meyer’s cashier after a long shift but the best time was after a 10 to 10 post-holidays after they told me my total, I asked if they would like a bag today and after a confused few seconds they were like, “no… I have the bags”
Worked in a gallery where we asked people to take off their backpacks in order not to accidentally damage paintings. So when I went to the shop later and saw a guy in the line in front of me, I told him he had to remove his backpack. He probably thought I was politely trying to rob him.
I work at architecture office and I send a lot of plans and images to our clients so my emails usually start with polish equivalent of “attached you can find”. recently I was sending sth to my dad by email and just couldn’t write a normal email bc I can only write like programmed machine I am. It went sth like “Hi Dad, attached you can find the image of Grandma. Please let me know what you think. Best regards.”
Working in Chick Fil A, we often shout “Nuggets” or “Filets” back to the breading people so that they know we’re getting low and they need to make a new drop, or yell “side salad” back to the prep person so that they know they need to make one. The proper response to somebody yelling something at you is to respond “HEARD” as loud as you possibly can. As you can guess, a lot of the time when my mom yells at me that I need to get out of bed, my response is to bellow “HEARD” without even thinking about it and promptly go back to sleep.
i have creeped out my fair share of total strangers by smiling at them and saying hi when i ran into them on dark streets as i walked home from the restaurant where i used to work at 1 in the morning
This entire thread is hilarious omg.
i worked as a supermarket cashier once and i had to memorize dozens of codes for fruit and vegetables… and asked my ex if he had bought “33150″ with a fake smile instead of just saying “zucchini” like a human being
foreign accent syndrome is a thing and its so fucked up
imagine growing up in central kentucky living on a dairy farm all your life never leaving the state and sounding like foghorn leghorn and one day a cow knocks your head the right way and suddenly youre speaking the queens english and theres nothing you can do about it
I hate when I make a comment that someone sees as random and they ask, “Haha, where did that come from?”
Do you really want to know the series of internal associations and mental events that led me from one idea to another? I’m guessing not so much.
What I think: “The color of your nail polish reminded me of iridescent beetle wings, which reminded me of a dress made for an 1888 production of Macbeth, onto which over a thousand jewel beetle wings were sewn. I purchased a green sequined dress and wore it to a New Year’s Party in Ohio, in honor of the number 7, the digit I find most pleasing. I associate the number 7 and its multiples as elegant and well-dressed. I always pictured a human version of the number 7 as having flapper hair with carefully waxed curls. Waxed curls remind me of Denise Crosby’s hairstyle in an episode of Star Trek I recently re-watched and then caused me to go on another long rant about how we depict robots in media. Robots remind me of the book I am reading, in which an AI must adjust to being housed in a gynoid body and passing as human. To do this, she eats to keep up pretenses and because she enjoys it. Eating despite not needing to reminds me that I need to eat and forget to because I don’t recognize hunger. Impaired hunger symbols may be due to a lack of beneficial gut bacteria. I am attempting to propogate more gut bacteria through consuming probiotic food like yoghurt and smoothie mixes. I have some in my refrigerator at home, but I need to ensure that they are not expired and that nothing in my kitchen is growing mold. Mold has many surprising uses – the discovery of penicillin and the advancement of medicine surely influenced the last century in immeasurably important ways. The last century has been full of evil as well as progress, however – nuclear weapons are evidence of that! There is strange symmetry to think that radiotrophic mold has apparently been discovered at the Chernobyl site. When I first learned this, I could not contain my excitement and shared this information with a customer service representative with my bank on the phone. He was informed and excited about this topic as well, and we had a wonderful conversation about it entirely unrelated to banking. I hope this diversion did not get him into trouble – I do not know what is or is not considered acceptable interaction with customers. I need to visit my bank soon and withdraw cash so I can pay Hope my share of the hotel bill next month. It’s unfortunate that we were not able to secure the AirB&B they used last year, but the hotel should be acceptable so long as it is clean. It may appear clean, but I bet there is a whole horrifying world of organic residue invisible to the naked eye…”
What I say out loud: “Did you know that blood doesn’t naturally fluoresce? It will not show up under a blacklight like in the movies. Real forensic investigators detect bloodstains by spraying chemicals like Luminol, which react with the iron in hemoglobin and cause the bloodstains to glow.“
I’m honestly impressed that you remembered the entire sequence of thoughts.
We were driving to a restaurant and wanted to see how long the wait was. My dad handed me the phone book and asked me to look up the number. I, for whatever reason, thought he said “get rid of this”. So I opened the window and chucked the phone book while we were going 70 MPH down the highway.
great
I stuck my hand in a bowl of soup simply because I hadn’t before.
same
When I was maybe 10-12, I threw one of my dad’s golf clubs that had no head on it like a spear down the hallway after telling my brother it would be cool.
absolutely
One time I was eating a lemon poppyseed muffin. The phone rang, so I reacted by shoving the entire muffin my mouth and eating it as fast as I could, nearly choking to death, and I didn’t even make it to the phone before it stopped ringing.
huge mood
Gave my sister a piggyback when she was giving my other sister a piggyback at the same time
a friend of mine forgot the word “lamp” once and said “light faucet”
I’m shaking from laughter. Yes, this is the right way to start a Friday morning.
Listen guys, I have a BA in English and an MA in Professional Writing and I have:
Forgotten the word “gums” and called them “teeth cuticles” Forgotten the term “liquor store” and called it a “rum-o-rama” Forgotten the word “mohawk” and called it a “head mustache”
The list goes on and on. Wording is HARD.
You know that putty you put in holes before you paint a wall? I forgot the word “putty,” called it “hole-be-gone” instead, and now my whole family refers to it as hole-be-gone.
it’s hard to make the brain do the english, ok!?
I wish I had this skill. When I lose a word, my brain derails. I use the term ‘derail’ because it is the mental equivalent of a train derailment (just easier to clean up)
At the staff meeting, my boss referred to the clipboard as “that snappy board”
My 4-year-old nephew didn’t know the word “knuckle” so he told us his finger knee hurt.
I had a French-Canadian friend who couldn’t remember the word for “feet” so they said “leg hands” and couldn’t remember eyes so said “seeing balls”
My German friend didn’t know how to say that the container holding her lasagna had leaked, so she said “the box drooled”
German for slug is “Nacktschnecke” (naked snail) so “Schnecke ohne Hause” (snail without house) is logical enough. After all, this is a language where gloves are “Handschuhe” and a bra is a “Büstenhalter” (though not a Titzling; if the place with the frequently-stolen signs is anything to go by, that’s more likely to be a town in Austria…)
I have the reverse happening to me in my native tongue. I often forget that we call spatulas a “frying shovel” in Swedish -_- my boyfriend teases me for it while cooking
no but seriously I still get chills thinking about turning off my headlamp in the cave and The Hand That I Did Not Actually See, and it’s been twelve years since it happened
it’s such an unreal experience
like
you turn off your light in a cave and wave your hand in front of your face
and
you can see this shadowy thing moving in the black space where your hand is
it looks like the same shadowy thing you would see in your room at night if you waved your hand in front of your face, it’s there and vaguely hand-shaped, and your brain recognizes it as your hand because your brain is aware of where your hand is and what it is doing
But You Are Not Seeing Anything
Inside a cave, there is No Light. No matter how far your pupils spread, there is no light for them to draw in, no light to put an image on your retina.
But your brain just Fucking Assumes that because it knows where your hand is and what it is doing, clearly it can see it.
So it creates a shadowy thing for your eyes to be seeing.
Brain is like “there’s a hand there”
Eyes are like “yup sure thing brain I can totally see it”
Brain is like “nice”
but there is no hand, you cannot see the hand, you are seeing a literal actual hallucination in the cave because your brain thinks it knows best
Caves are awesome, but also terrifying. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
we once went spelunking, and a our guide said that once he was in a cave with a stream, so he could hear running water, and his brain was like ‘oh, running water? that means there must be Ducks out there’. and he saw like…low light shadows of ducks. that his brain just Put There.
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