Did you know that when you look at something, what your eyes really capture is equivalent to the jerky, unstable images of a handheld camera?
So why is it that we see so clearly? Because our brain compiles those jerky images from our eyes moving around and stitches them all together to make one cohesive picture, like movie frames.
Even what your eyes capture isn’t the full view—there are gaps in the images—like pictures with smudges or holes. You brain fixes this too—it takes in information from the surrounding images and fills in those gaps.
All of this happens so fast, that the majority of people are not aware of it, and the brain spits out a visual interpretation of what the eyes see so we can understand and respond to our environment accordingly.
But sometimes, the brain is too smart for its own good. It will fill in those gaps with what is supposed to be there, not what is necessarily there in reality. The educated guess only goes so far, especially if the brain is under stress.
A great example: Last week I made some changes to my website and posted about it with a butterfly picture. I made the picture late at night, on a day where I had worked some long hours, and I was very tired.
Now, usually, I work on my posts and pictures over the weekend, when I am refreshed and relaxed. But since I had spent the majority of my early and late hours after work last week on my website, I decided to go for an impromptu post, #26.
Everything was going smoothly, except this happened:
I was typing, “Change is in the air.” That’s what I thought I had typed, and what I had thought I read when I proofread it. But my brain, my awesome tired brain, interpreted what my eyes saw, in all their jerky, holey glory, that one of those “in’s” was in fact an “is”. Picture goes up, gets posted on social media, and I happen to look at it several hours later, and notice my mistake.
Moral of the story: your brain is awesome and makes you unique, but sometimes it needs to be rested in order to perform better. I might have caught the mistake had I been more refreshed, but alas, that is the nature of working all the time.
Until next time, dear readers.