The pages alone of magazines and optometry textbooks don’t harbor optical illusions; our own surroundings can easily fool our own eyes. Any change in color, shape, perspective, and shadow can boggle our minds to a particular degree and confuse our perceived realities with trippy imagery.
All of the photos below on the list have not been edited or Photoshopped in any way whatsoever—any weird observation your eyes make is a mere result of your mind’s interpretation of the sight before you. Read on for an arch that looks twisted, a man that appears to be levitating, and our world laid on some grass.
The Squiggly Mile
If you take enough mind-altering substances, this mind-boggling corridor could appear normal. The flooring and walls may be accurately aligned and are in no way intentionally constructed to be a casual hazard, but the lines painted onto them make the girl appear as though she is walking down a frightening hallway. The flooring work done on this illusion is incredible.
We can only imagine how many other people who may already have or have not yet passed through this corridor are capable of making their way through it without tripping. This optical illusion is bound to keep you from taking a normal stroll through.
Just Another Wave in the Wall
This mountain range may appear to be situated by a lake, but someone call a lawyer because this “lake” just so happens to be a concrete wall that has been precisely darkened by the shadows cast from the sunlight shining above it, giving its white paint the look of lake water. The sun shining brightly above the wall has shaded it well enough to bear the appearance of a sandy shore.
Let us just wish good luck to any visitors traveling past this spot and wish that they will not feel like they would want to swim in this illusion.
How Many Legs
Elephants are known in real life for having four legs, so the one drawn above should have four legs, right? The problem with the image above is figuring which legs are the original four and which legs have been drawn to trick us. We can’t tell, and we probably never could!
What do you think? Is your mind getting fried just struggling to decipher this delusion like our minds? One clue is that like a refinanced home loan, the elephant has its feet placed elsewhere, deceiving us with legs that seem real but are not at all. Or are they?
How Many Eyes?
What do you perceive when your eyes gaze upon my own? That seems to be the question imposed upon the viewer by the attorney in the picture. For this illusion, you will need to choose one eye to focus on, which sounds much easier said than done.
Which of the two mouths drawn on as well does he seem to converse with? Does one mouth serve to eat while the other is reserved for conversation? We got so much going on in our minds, and we can only wish that the man in the illusion can give us his reply.
Good Grief
For motorists who wish to speed across this crossing lane, Charlie Brown and his gang look like they’re crossing the road themselves. For those on foot who wait to make it to the other side of the street, the aforementioned group appears to have been stretched and illustrated in a two-dimensional style right on top of the lane.
We enjoy the small changes in perspective that can change many things before our own eyes. This illusion is after all a great idea to urge drivers everywhere to slow down and save them from maybe even taking out some unnecessary insurance.
A Classic Partner
This particular wall design, which is sometimes called the “cafe wall design”, showcases a series of square-tiled rows that consist of black and white square tiles that had been placed in parallel conjecture to each other, giving them the wall’s sloping appearance.
Science can explain much of this phenomenon to a certain degree where straight lines appear erratic, but its mention of some parts of the eye like the retina still can’t be comprehended by people with the likes of us. We can at least make sure that looking at this illusion could send all our thinking minds down the drain.
Body Swap
The moment you first come upon this image, it seems that the man’s head is disproportional to his body. You do not need to fret; your eyes are just playing games with you. If you pay closer attention to the photo, you can see that the man is sitting in his seat while his girlfriend has her arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind and her head tucked into that space between his neck and over his right shoulder.
You can believe that, or you can hilariously assume that he missed leg day. We are not attorneys, so it is not our place to say anything.
Like Oil and Water
Can you find the glass rod in the image above? You probably might have trouble doing so. However, you may succeed in spotting it through one of the liquids in the glass, even though they are both transparent.
This trick works because of the different speeds that light passes through the gas oil, the glass, and the water. While light may go through the oil and the glass at the same pace, its velocity through the water is a different story. Science may make sense of the many things that surround us, but this one may just make us want to scratch our heads for a bit.
You’ll Float Too
It looks like the man is nonchalantly floating a small distance above the road, but this is not the case. He has only been standing beside a wet mark on the concrete that appears to be his shadow.
Unlike the isolating and screen-heavy nature of online classes, optical illusions seem to take effect better in pictures than in real life. If we were there in the vicinity of this photo with the “floating” man, we would not be as astounded since we could merely walk around him like the trick is nothing out of the ordinary.
Master of Disguise
A certain San Francisco street artist deserves credit for his efforts in designing this utility box with the intention to camouflage it against the environment of the neighborhood where it has been installed. The life in the artwork painted onto this utility box is just a much bigger improvement than real life. How wonderful the world can be if every crossing lane had its own tiny bridge and stream.
We are only concerned if anyone has ever run or ridden into this box by accident. It just seems to fit into its surroundings quite naturally.