Have your eyes ever played tricks on you?
By firecracker
@sacmom (14192)
United States
May 11, 2007 11:17am CST
Yesterday afternoon my kids and I were outside watering the yard. While doing so, my youngest son had grabbed a stick and we put some little weeds in the ends of it. My son wanted to keep it for later so I put it in my jeans (front pocket). I went back to watering the yard and forgot about it. Several minutes later I started to look down as I thought I saw something. I thought it was a praying mantis looking up at me, and a nice sized one at that. I screamed! But only for a second. I thought to myself quickly, 'it's just a praying mantis, it won't hurt me', so I looked back down and saw it was the stick I had put in my pocket! LOL
I had another incident where my eyes played tricks on me. Day before yesterday I was driving down one of the country roads I live near and saw something several feet ahead. This something looked like it was swaying back and forth across the road. I thought it was some sort of wind sock so I was going to continue down the road at my current speed (55 mph), but something told me to slow down...so I did. As I approached the strange object I saw that it was a momma duck and about 8 ducklings! I stopped completely so they could finish crossing the road safely. Whew, I'm so glad I slowed down and stopped. I would have felt just awful if I would have ran over them. :(
So, have your eyes ever played tricks on you?
3 people like this
4 responses
@prestocaro (1251)
• United States
11 May 07
All the time! Once, I thought I saw something truly horrifying.
Many times here in Austin the girl scouts will set up a table across the street from the U of Texas to sell girl scout cookies. This is a great tool, I think, for selling because of all the hungry college kids. Anyway, I was riding in someone's car and I thought I saw, in between the fast-moving cars, a hobo strangling a girl scout. Here in Austin the homeless population is very large and most are harmless.
But it appeared to me that I saw first him standing next to the table, then a car went by, then his hands on her neck, then another car went by. Then I thought I saw him standing over her, still strangling her. We didn't stop -- I don't remember why -- but that night I watched all the local news channels and no one reported on it.
I think I was just really tired and my mind was distracted. weird, huh?
3 people like this
@rodeotexas (1153)
• United States
11 May 07
My eyes have done that a few times. The most recent was a stick that looked like a snake. I started screaming and ran far away from it. lol I am deathly afraid of snakes and I could have sworn it was a snake.
3 people like this
@egfitz62150 (645)
• United States
11 May 07
Oh yes! This happens to me all the time. I was once scared by my own hair!! I'd put it in a braid and later that night thought the end of the braid was a big bug crawling on my shoulder! LOL!!! Hard to get away from!! LOL!
Seriously, though, the human eye goes to great lengths to make sense of what it's seeing -- it's part of our defense system, the fight or flight thing. The eye and brain are trying to decide if what it's seeing is a threat or not, and if it can't tell right away what it is seeing, it errs on the side of "threat." It's also what enables us to see figures in clouds or other patterns that otherwise make no visual sense to us.
@uniquenorthern (932)
• United States
11 May 07
lmao...I do this so often that I always have look twice at everything before I react to it anymore. I have to wear bifocals because my eyes do not adjust at the same time when I blink, so I know that I have problems with my vision already. Then to top it all off, I have had floaters in both eyes for several years now that come and go when they please. :)
