Have you ever seen faces or familiar shapes in objects you shouldn’t see them? Have you seen dragon-shaped clouds or human silhouettes in the bark of random trees? Or perhaps the face of your dog in a banana slice? This weird phenomenon is known as pareidolia.
Pareidolia is something we often experience because our brains are wired to search for familiar patterns everywhere we look.
It’s nothing unusual, but it can happen in pretty odd situations. professor Kang Lee from the University of Toronto told Bored Panda:
“Pareidolia illustrates the interaction between the visual cortex and the frontal cortex of the human brain. It suggests that our brain is highly sensitive and expecting to encounter and process some special classes of objects in our environment because they are biological and socially important to our adaptions to the environment.”
Here are 40 examples of the curious experience called pareidolia captured on camera.
1. This pupper is not impressed with his lookalike.
2. Let us out!
3. Whatever this poor chair is going through, we all can relate.
4. This piece of driftwood looks exactly like a dragon’s head.
5. I cannot be the only one who sees how this cliff is nibbling on the moon.
Prof. Lee said there is nothing wrong with experiencing pareidolia and it has nothing to do with paranoia or delusion. He added:
“For some people, their frontal cortex’s expectation for certain objects (e.g., faces) become so high that they see faces in many situations where no faces exist.”
6. Curves are back in style!
7. I wonder which song was on.
8. This car seems pretty happy about the snowstorm.
9. Scared switches.
10. This is why literal fairy tales exist.
In an interview with BBC Future, professor Lee said:
“If someone reports seeing Jesus in a piece of toast, you’d think they must be nuts. But it’s very pervasive. We are primed to see faces in every corner of the visual world.”
11. I thought this lady was a muppet.
12. These two rocks look like a mother breastfeeding her newborn child.
13. I want to believe.
14. This dragon tree.
15. When the art looks exactly like the artist.
As Life Science reports, religious people or those who strongly believe in supernatural forces experience pareidolia more often.
What’s more, in his book “The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark” the American cosmologist Carl Sagan issued that seeing familiar patterns in random objects was an important survival technique. According to Sagan, this phenomenon helped people tell whether an oncoming person is a friend or foe.
16. Do you see the lion wearing sunglasses on the belly of this cricket?
17. You thought it was a cute dog, right? Well, it’s only rust.
18. The snow on top of this mountain looks like a huge albino lizard.
19. Any Ice Age lover would get this.
20. Overflowing cupcake fail or a masterpiece?
The Rennaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci saw pareidolia as an artistic device. In a passage in one of his extensive notebooks, Da Vinci wrote:
“If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills.”
21. Looks like there’s a goddess in this orange.
22. This boiled egg that exploded while cooking and looks like a snail.
23. I believe I can fly!
24. This shadow looks exactly like a man’s head.
25. This dinosaur-shaped cactus near the Superstition Mountains is dino-mite!!! 😂
26. You’re a wizard, Harry!
27. Bubbles that form a little cat shape.
28. This awesome dog stick.
29. This lady is having twins.
30. This eagle-shaped orchid.
31. The pattern on this pupper’s chest looks like a cat mid sneeze.
32. And while we’re on the dogs’ subject, look at this pure bread!
33. I’ve seen things. Terrible things.
34. Have you seen the movie Alien? If you have, this pickle would probably freak you out.
35. This is the happiest motorcycle you’ll see today.
36. I think these bumper cars are a little scary 😆.
37. That’s the saddest belt I’ve seen.
38. Pulled the door handle off and he was as shocked as I was.
39. The ice in this glass sort of looks like a face.
40. And lastly, here’s this ashy potato with a funny face.
