By Vurdlak on June 24, 2007, with 584 Comments
This animation was on my laptop for quite some time. I had it for almost a year. Today anonymous user submitted me this gif version, and when I opened it, only then I realized how great this illusion actually is. If you look at the spinning girl’s silhouette below, you will think it is spinning clockwise, probably. When you check her shadow below, momentarily the spinning direction changes in your mind, and now the girl is spinning counter-clockwise. It can be quite hard at the beginning to notice switch of the spinning direction, but eventually you’ll manage. I posted more simple illusion of this kind while ago, and you can see it here. Now, be honest – how long did it take you to see it spin in both directions? Not as easy as the hidden tiger, ayeh? I lost the link to the original artist, but best I could come up with is the place I found it on.
(144 votes)
This is easily one of the best illusions I’ve ever come across.
ITS NOT AMAZING OK? ITS JUST SOME JEDI MIND TRICK! STOP DROOLING!! THAT GOES FOR EVERYONE!!!!! ;)
OMG THATS NOT POSSIBLE MAKE IT STOP WHICH WAY IS IT ACTUALLY SPINNING THE WORLD WILL NEVER KNOW IT HURTS ME IM GONNA HAVE NIGHT MARES FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…you guys are scaring me. ;-(
different people like different things ok?
Whoa. Talk about amazing.
Cool I made it change direction x)
Amazing illusion.
Her right leg is outstretched in one direction, and her left in the other… Or maybe I’m just crazy. :P
You are crazy
that is rude of you! :-((
There’s nothing to do with brain. It all with our eyes,when the girls spins at anti clock wise just then look at her feet she will start spinning at clock wise.Originally the girl is not spinning at any direction.She just moving from left to right and right to left.Make your head horizontally down and look at her movement you will find the trick.But its great
Nothing to do with the brain? Where are your eyes attached to? Your intestines?
brothers if u concentarate at her feet movement , you will find that she is moving in both directions, ie left to right and right to left,,,, she is not rotating at 180 degree
It is the brain that does it. It has nothing to do with her legs or feet. Try it yourself. Just hide her entire body and leave only her head, you can make her spin in either direction. This is one of the mensa tricks to test intelligence. The quicker you can make her change directions and more often indicate a higher iq.
An another thought I think its because its a 2 dimentional picture
This is the first time i’ve ever payed attention to the dancer (Its always turned clockwise for me when i glance at it) and honestly… very easy to switch…
there are to joint animated gifs…
one dancing clockwise the other the other way…
haha
nope sady are wrong
sadly* now im correcting my own spellings
i noticed her changing directions by watching her hand that is out furthest from her body, i saw it switching directions. this is because it is moving faster than it should in an actual spin .
If you can’t get it, cover up the top of the picture with your hand and just focus on the bottom of her legs. Imagine them coming toward you vs. moving away from you. ONce you get that much the rest will fall into place.
Our brains make a lot of assumptions.
It’s difficult to make your brain understand it, but try to imagine the arm, leg, and hair as always behind or in front of the girl. I can’t figure out how to make it instant, but doing that helps convince my brain.
Try to switch head positions from normal(vertical) to horizontal position. Try both sides, left and right. You should easily fool your brain and make her spin to other direction…
YOU CAN “FORCE” YOURSELF TO SWITCH HER, TRY TO SWITCH HER DIRECTION AT THE FEET, RIGHT WHEN THEY OVERLAP
Anybody else see her spinning ANTICLOCKWISE originally, I did, everybody here seems to see clockwise.
I cant make her switch :(
i did but i an make it switch whenever i want
takes me a few minutes
all you did was pause her for like not even a second and made her switch and you can tell cause her face does turn the other wat
I was trying to make her spin counterclockwise… and then I somehow did. And she wouldn’t go back to clockwise… gotta say I panicked for a minute |D
She’s switching sides like every minute (almost)
I noticed that, too! I don’t believe it is a real illusion because if you just watch the body it switches directions. Rip-off.
LOL…..To all the morons who noticed the illusion…..its not an illusion at all the girl itself is changing direction in around 40-50 secs.
I can make her switch every 5 seconds or so, so it’s not a timed switch over although it does look like it
im waiting for her to fall
I noticed it is a ice skater.. >.>
Look the end of her foot, ‘seems to be going in a circular fashion’ Well actually every once in a while her foot stops touching the ‘ground’
If anyone takes the time to open this gif in a gif animation creater, you can watch the elaborate compilation unfold frame by frame. Not only does her head and legs spin in opposite directions but there’s a subliminal ad for Pepsi in frame 27.
It took me about 10 secs to see it in both directions
Gif timed fusion delay
I got her spinning both ways! My trick is to think of a spinning clock… :P
I always spent my half an hour to read this website
I CANT DO IT!!!! I managed to solve the other pics including the 3d ones but this is killing me :(
look at the shadow on the floor and u will find the answer
519th comment!
COOL! I can spin it any side i want..:D
If you want a real mind fuck open two at the same time and try to spin them in different directions; challenge block one and when you get the other spinning in a different direction look at the blocked one without the original switching back
I want to see a spinning duck. The same will be true in silhouette, but will never be as pleasing to watch.
she keeps on switching :D
best illusion i’ve seen ever!!!!
Completely easy but awesome too. :)
I can make her change direction every second! XD
WAAA I Can’T she keep spinning clockwise WTH
same here.
Is it normal that I can see it spinning in both directions?
Funny, I noticed the reversing before I read anything.
I know right!
too bad its not an illusion if you cover her head or her feet and focus on her spinning the way it “appears” she is…. you’ll notice at random intervals the gif flicks and she starts going the opposite way it’s not an illusion its just a gif of a outline spinning two different directions
I heard that illusion is to do with the sides of the brain- anti clockwis; right brain. clockwise… well you get the idea. and you can swicth from left brain to right brain whenever you like! preety cool
“remember the titanic”
I now cant see the illusion cos i know how it works
the first thing i’ve noticed with the girl is it’s turning spinning counter-clockwise, but then when i looked at the description you’ve atached, i suddenly noticed it spinning clockwise! then i coudn’t see it spinning counter-clockwise anymore, no matter how i stare at the girl..
I never saw it spinning clockwise. It was always counter clockwise. Hmm…
Catacus OUT!
i can only see her spinning clock-wise… is it just me or does someone else just see that, too? i would really like an answer so i know im not crazy. either that, or i dont know my left from my right lol!! :P
it honestly took me like 2 mins after reading what i had to do above it.
are you sure it is an optical illusion and not 2 gif picture combined? I think when the girl spin clockwise and counterclockwise, it raise different hand, one is the left hand, and the other is the right hand
wrong. Notice the little “glitch?” that is the woman stopping and changing directions. looking at the shadow and the woman has nothing to do with it. you wait long enough and you will notice it.
The shadow has nothing to do with the change of view.
i dont think its an illusion, i think its timed to switch the way its rotating, just my humble opinion
Not timed at all, it is an illusion which you can manipulate with your mind. The fact that the figure is a shadow helps to obscure directional cues. Your mind works to make sense of the image and fills in details you are most comfortable with. The thing you must do is confuse your mind for just a moment, then the figure changes direction. Read my comment further down, for tips on how you can manipulate the rotation at will… even stop the full rotation entirely.
its not working. she’s still clockwise >: L
it spun clockwise for 1 sec, the it went counter.
i can change the direction of it evrytime i want , you just gotta close ur eyes concetrate on imagining this in ur mind and changing the direction of it , when u open ur eyes the girl will be rotating the way u imagined her this is a really cool illusion ,
wait!!! It did for just a sec! YAY I’m a billionaire!!! oh wait.
what do you mean and c i havesome csh like you said you had? im just kidding
Very intriguing illusion. I found I can spin the figure clockwise, counter clockwise, or not spin at all; oscillate left to right approximately 90 degrees each way. The key is to watch the leg which extends to the floor. As the toes of that foot rotate toward you, just at the apex of the arc, when the shadow meets the foot, you can determine which way you want the figure to rotate. Once you’ve mastered that… takes abut 30 sec, you can oscillate back and forth at will.
i did not get it at first than i saw some stupid comments and laughed and tried again and guess what it work thanks
this guys awsome
1. save the spinning gif
2. download this
http://www.geardownload.com/graphic/easy-gif-animator-download.html
3. open the saved spinning gif, it has 34 frames
4. some frames are clockwise and some are counter clockwise
5. makes sense? ^.~
Well, I gotta say theres nothig to incredible to this once you figure it out, but it is a great illusion, the figure only moves left to right, then right to left non-stop but aince her shadow is placed in an impossible location, using your eyes (or head) she make appear to be spinning clockwise if at first you looked at her body, or counter clockwise if you first accidently looked at her shadow
It’s not separate frames with it rotating one way and then the other. It’s just that when it turns so that the leg is in the middle, the foot could be facing front or back. but we give it the dimension for it to be spinning in a specific direction.
I think it should be defined clearly which is clockwise and counter-clockwise by determining from where we see (from up or down).
It’s explained clearly on wikipedia.
It’s been two years since I first saw this and I still can’t make her go clockwise :) I did check all the frames but when I view the animation it always goes counter-clockwise. I wonder what my mind is missing.
Oh what the hell I can make it rapidly change back in forth this is trippy :o
My method: blink your eyes repeatedly and fast…
coooolo
Look at her foot and imagine it going in the opposite direction. If you need to, hold your hand up so you can only see her foot on the ground.
i got head pomp fro it
Well it is a real good illusion, and it took me about 7 seconds to see it change, only thing now, i only see going counter clock wise and cant get my brain to see go clock wise again… lol… tricky business i guess
the spinning girl actually starts spinning the other direction every so often. its not an illusion. look at the top of her foot and the angle it makes. it changes. cant fake geometry.
I have seen a cat one.
In answer the question of which way the girl is actually spinning in this rendering… She’s spinning counter-clockwise. The reflection below her definitively shows her direction of spin. To see her outstretched foot in the reflection as we do, her outstretched foot would be farthest away from us to become visible in the reflection. If you see her spinning clockwise, her outstretched foot would be in front or her at a time when the reflection clearly shows her foot being behind her which makes no sense.
Without the reflection, you wouldn’t know either way. With the reflection, it shows she’s spinning counter-clockwise. Your mind can see it both ways until your mind applies logic at which point it can be hard to see her spinning clockwise again.
ALL I SEE IS IT GOING COUNTER-CLOCKWISE IT WON’T STOP!!!
Holy cow! The entire image actually FLIPS in your mind! It literally MIRRORS it! AMAZING! For anyone having trouble flipping, concentrate on the shadow of the foot. concentrate on it for a little bit and look back up. FLIP!
Very simple. Look at the dancer, and then close your eyes. Visualize her moving in the opposite direction. When you open your eyes, she’ll be moving that way. Close your eyes and visualize once again, this time moving the opposite way. Open your eyes…
I can have her switch directions almost instantaneously using this methodology. It is pretty freaky though :D
it spins both ways?
Hand and foot are going from right to left when facing us, how can i go counterclockwise without there being a reverse of this please explain