So I'm curious if I'm a freak or if this is just my inner artist trying to break through. Or possibly if I just took to much acid in my early 20's...

Before this begins to sound like I'm trying to tell everyone that I hallucinate or something, what I'm curious of is how many people, if anyone, tend to get ideas by looking at different surfaces and sort of... seeing things in them. Everyone's heard of watching the clouds pass and recognizing shapes and things... but I will sometimes find myself laying in bed staring at the popcorn ceiling and without much effort, I can start to make out something in a particular spot... could be anything but frequently are faces or monsters perhaps... as detailed as having any range of expressions and more-so the longer I let my mind wander.

So am I a freak or is there kin to my madness among the polycounters?

Hm... when I was around 10 years old I saw a man in the clouds. It was actually fairly detailed. It's been six years since and I can still remember. He kind of looked like an old pirate. No joke.

I'm pretty sure it's just the brain trying to make sense out of a random patterns of things. Either way, I have this too but probably not as strong.

I once thought that a random splotch of rust in the bend of the toilet looked like an orthodox christian icon. I could see the stylish face, the cloak, even the halo around the head. Weird stuff.

yes i have it too, to outrageous levels. some... instances... incite these visions to terrifyingly real dimensions

ive just met a girl who admitted she is not only able to see stuff manifest in front of her (all a projection of the mind, of course) but can push it to the point where she completely cannot see the real world. and no, she's not a hippi

Originally Posted by shotgun

yes i have it too, to outrageous levels. some... instances... incite these visions to terrifyingly real dimensions

ive just met a girl who admitted she is not only able to see stuff manifest in front of her (all a projection of the mind, of course) but can push it to the point where she completely cannot see the real world. and no, she's not a hippi

I don't condone it's use (overdid it a bit as I alluded to in my first post)... but I could only manipulate my vision that much on LSD.

What kills me is that I can't take a perfect snap shot of exactly what I'm seeing at the moment. I (don't laugh) don't have a phone with a decent enough camera and when I have tried to use what I've got and look at... it's hard to recreate the same sort of experience. The depth (if there is any) of the texture seems to be what really makes the "image" "come to life."

Yes! We have like... these weird tiles in our bathroom. They're pretty small, but have these sorta painted blotches on each one (probably from way back in the '60s or something).

Anyway, I see faces in them... like ALL the time. I just attribute it to my overactive imagination :P But usually it's faces, or sometimes full bodies, sometimes in action poses even... sometimes even animals. Good times.

But this certainly isn't unheard of... ever hear about that grilled cheese sandwich that a crazy American lady thought was the image of Jesus? Yeah, I see stuff like that, but without the crazy religious additions. Cause, if it was on a grilled cheese... I would still eat it...

Seeing things? It happens. I think it's the brain trying to make sense of patterns as mentioned above... but hey, for shits and giggles. The Freakiest thing I saw was at my girlfriends place fairly recently.

I was getting ready for bed and turned off all the lights and was heading through the door to the bedroom. I turned around to see if i had forgotten anything and at that point i could swear i saw a dim glowing head with neck and shoulders going past me at hip/knee level very close to me.

It wasn't as much scary as it was "holy f'n balls on a wall, did i actually see that?". I dunno if i did but I certainly thought so, I stood there dumbfounded for a few minutes until the girlfriend wondered what i was doing.

I don't think i saw anything like that though. Just the brain making shit up from the odd info it got.

Yup, pattern recognition. I see lots of things in patterns. I find it happens more when I'm not concentrating, not trying to see things.

I find that when sketching out designs, just drawing weird doodles and lines and overlapping patterns can result in me "finding" ideas in the lines that I never even considered before, and just creating something totally new from a mess of randomness.

I do this sometimes, I have a curtain with wierd shapes and I see what kinds of things I can see in it. Or I look at the trees, and flicker backwards and forwards focusing on all the silly faces I can see.

Its this sort of thing that makes me doubt all the weird things people say they see.

Yes, I experience this too. The worst time was when I was about 12 years old and I was lying in my bed looking at the wall(the room was dark). I saw the shape of a panther-like creature on the wall looking at another creature as if they were having a conversation. The next thing that happened was that the shape of the panther creature changed shape and it looked like it was looking straight at me in a very creepy way. I got pretty scared.

It's hardly something special; the human brain has a knack for finding facial shapes in everything. It's why children always say that cars have faces, even though a bumper and two headlights don't really look like a mouth and two eyes at all when you think about it.

It's also why people see patterns that vaguely resemble some idea of the face of Jesus in toast, pans, walls, stains, bedsheets, watermelons...

Besides seeing shapes in things (I swear there's a laughing monkey face in the wood pattern on a door I saw once), I constantly see the world in polygons and verts and wires. That's why if I see something that looks like it could be an ngon in real life, I get SO MAD.

Originally Posted by MoP

It's also why people see patterns that vaguely resemble some idea of the face of Jesus in toast, pans, walls, stains, bedsheets, watermelons...

Yeah, and I doubt that people who see Jesus in their excrements are having their "inner artist trying to break through" ;) .

Originally Posted by vcool

I once thought that a random splotch of rust in the bend of the toilet looked like an orthodox christian icon. I could see the stylish face, the cloak, even the halo around the head. Weird stuff.

You could have sold it on ebay. That Holy Potato made a couple of bucks if I recall correctly.


As someone who's been fighting insomnia (guess caffeine and nicotine doesn't help me all that much :p) for the longer part of my short life I've seen my share of wierd things. While completely sleepless nights don't happen to me that often anymore, there are periods of time when I cannot mantain sleep for more than a few days, or weeks.

Waking up every half an hour wears you out rather quickly and after a couple of days, your brain starts acting really funny. Unfortunately, it's nothing really interesting; inability to estimate the size of your surroundings, constant alertness and imagination running wild (and it never goes into the erotic field). I bet everyone here was at least once in such state, especially during LONG gaming sessions

But it gets weirder when you start hearing things; since your brain remains very active during the night it tends to pick up every single noise and interprets them in some really bizzare ways. It's the worst during windy nights; if you get yourself into such state I guarantee you will "hear" some random whispers. Fucking creepy.

My parents used to get angry when I was leaving light on for the whole night... but when you start hearing whispers and have life sized Bunraku puppet hanging on your wall, there's no way you would be sitting alone in the dark.

No, I am not insane ;)


But yeah, pareidolia is pretty much normal.

I agree with Karmageddon. Whenever I see a building in my head I start to go over how I build it, what I would for every action. Also the ngon thing big time. This picture drives me up the wall. Haha, once again I relate with polycount, I too have to endure insomnia. My brain becomes hyper active and odd stuff begins to happen.

Oh I get this kind of thing all the time. You want to know my number one cause? Towels. Yup.

But what is frustrating, is sometimes I'll see a pretty cool image there it'll spark my brain up and the image in my brain is never as good as what I can eventually recreate on paper/screen etc.

A friend of mine said when he tried Salvia, he literally went to another world. Now that drug is renowned for trips like that, but everyone sees faces and other things within patterns and surfaces, i think its just the mind, and imagination. If you look at anything long enough you start to notice more about it, it just so happens that our mind likes to try and relate everything to what we already know.

Originally Posted by MoP

I find that when sketching out designs, just drawing weird doodles and lines and overlapping patterns can result in me "finding" ideas in the lines that I never even considered before, and just creating something totally new from a mess of randomness.

THIS is a key exercise every artist should practice regularly or start their drawing sessions off with. Keep it loose, keep it simple, and don't think.

as for the OP, you're not crazy... i see dead people.

Originally Posted by teaandcigarettes

But yeah, pareidolia is pretty much normal.

Ah... there's a name. Well, now I really don't feel quite so strange. Interesting though, how often it's facial... I hadn't put 2 and 2 together with that but sure enough, it's very frequently faces.

Originally Posted by die_Kröte

I'm curious of is how many people, if anyone, tend to get ideas by looking at different surfaces and sort of... seeing things in them.

As long as I can remember, I've experienced the same thing you're describing, in clouds, tile, granite, wood grain, etc. Usually, I see skulls.

i see images of Jeff Daniels everywhere

All the images you've ever viewed and the significance or context of them contribute to your own particular way to recognize patterns in randomness. I remember there was some article where if you show ambiguously sexualised rorschach images to children of a certain age they only ever interpret it in a non-sexualised way as they've not been 'corrupted' by internet pron etc but the basic notion is the way any one individual interprets an image or mass of random shapes is influenced by their own experiences and what they've seen upto that point coupled with a basic wiring of the visual system to recognise facial shapes/feaures etc which most of us share.

If I didn't have a permanent shoulder injury and nerve confusion in my primary hand, I could draw some seriously trippy things resulting from projected imagination. I see faces everywhere, random flashes of color, all sorts of cool designs, and even a few full-on hallucinations. It's partly the reason I've gotten into fractal art; all them bloody patterns.

I also naturally think in terms of comicbook panels, for some reason.

For everything.

Everything.

I see an alien face everytime i take a shit , it's just a pattern cut into the rug that stares back at me!