"Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry
Probably all of you saw this picture at some point of your life. Titled the “Afghan Girl”, this photo was named the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic. Although girl’s name was not known, her picture appeared on the June 1985 cover of the magazine. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. Gula was known throughout the world simply as the Afghan Girl until she was formally identified in early 2002.
Over time, many variations of Steve McCurry’s original photo appeared. At some point even in optical illusion form, as we see below. All I could find about this illusion, is that people can’t seem to look at it for too long. Apparently you get a headache, or become nervous at best. Maybe this isn’t the true nature of this illusion, but it just didn’t make me hallucinate like some other animations did. Wait few seconds for the animation to load (it’s 1MB big), and share your experience afterward.
(65 votes)
LOL to me it just looks like she’s gone crazy and trying to do some creeeeepy mind control thing… all like “look into my eyes, you will now be my zombie slave!” LOL, her eyes were all like swirly and crazy-looking coz of the spinning lines
she is innocent but in this gif photo, she is horrible
after about 30 seconds my eyes started to feel kinda weird and after about a min or so my head started hurting but I wanted to see how long i could look at it. after about 3min i broke into a sweat and started feeling nauseous. I couldn’t stop throwing up for about 30min, ended up puking up a lot of bile and straining so hard my throat started bleeding and i think i may have a hernia.
Pf, nothing, but creepy!
It didnt bother me at first, but after 30 seconds I felt a stir in my pants, and then @ just after the 1 minute mark i simultaneously soiled myself and ejaculated. I still feel weird from it – and nearly 30 minutes have gone by!
just made my eyes water, got really hot and made them hurt.
This isn’t an optical illusion. This is just a trippy GIF.
yeah, not an illusion.
did noting to me…
now the voices in my head are telling me to KILL
Anyone else notice the third eye (pineal) circle generator? Uhh.. the spot on her forehead.
dumb. theres nothing wrong with the pic of the girl. its the twirling lines that trigger the nauseous reaction.
Nothing wierd, stared at it for five minutes with no bi-effects except somewhat hurting eyes(not uncommon after staring at a screen 15 cm away for five minutes).
i felt nothing
i did nothing to me.
If you look at her right eye, and keep looking, her head will start bulging and her eyes become piercing… Like a demon… Really scary.
I think it’s the way the illusion makes her eyes look…somewhat possessed.
got me going
there is a third, pink set of rings in her fore head
There’s nothing wrong with this picture and there is nothing wrong with the girl. The lines in the .gif may trigger a motion-sickness-like feeling, but hey, if you don’t like the headaches or nausea, don’t look at it.
I liked the illusion, personally.
Oh my God,come on guys what hapend to you peopl, there is nothing in the pic, only the one who uploaded the pic, he or she put some graphs on her face, thats hypnotic graphics nothing els. make the same graphs on white paper your head will hurt soon..
cheerz
she disappeared…
its clearly mostly to do with the fact that you are thinking the illusion will do weird things to you. your mind then makes it so. i knew it wasnt real and stared at it for well over 5 minutes and nothing happened. if someone told you a sugar pill was a drug that would make you vommit, then you would probably end up throwing up.
(shudders)
this is creepy
I looked at this image for a bit, and no headache. Then i got the “bright idea” to try something: to look at it in 3D. allow me a rather lengthy explanation. If you have ever learned to see the “Magic Eye” type of picture in 3D, you can also train yourself to see almost any repetative pattern the same way (It;s all in the focus) stereoscope photos, even fabric or wallpaper patterns. with that in mind, I opened another browser window and copied and pasted the address to get a second instance of the image open. Then I put them side by side and started crossing my eyes…soon I could see her in 3D. NOW I have a headache!
actually if you stare in some point for long enought, the moving line will seem to stop. that’s the illusion… i guess.
it makes it easier if you look in the eye
The nausea is a result of your own rapid eye movement from one of her eyes to the other and constant involuntary focusing. This rapid movement and focusing can also raise your heart rate.
wow its hard to look away from it. If you stair at it to long it hurts your brain and eyes. But that might be just me XD
The illusion I am guessing is the ‘third swirl’ that appears in the middle of her forehead. It’s seen as a ‘third eye’ because of the two swirls out of her eyes… but if you follow this swirl out you notice it disappearing as it goes out… and the swirling does really mess with you if you stare at it too long… not a good image imo.
well, i saw something else than the girl, i watched it for about 15-20 seconds but the shape and look of her face changed and i got freaked out
The feelings are caused by the alternating movement of the rings. One set is going out from the eye (the left) and the other set (the right) is going towards the eye. The alternating motion probably causes a form of seasickness? My opinionon, no science to verify. lol
Zahirah says:
February 2, 2010 at 10:08 pm
“If you look at her right eye, and keep looking, her head will start bulging and her eyes become piercing… Like a demon… Really scary.”
Agree Zahirah
I stared at the left eye ( dont look away 1-2 minutes) just concentrate long enough the detail goes in the face and then it warps and bulges but the eyes remain clear…. pretty freaky shit…….
Okay I’m scared…
ooh aaaaaaaaaaah! shes controlling me! aaaaaaaaah! :p
This is some swirly lines over a photo of a girl’s face.
To me, her skin turns a weird, pinky-purpley color if you look directly at the eyes and see it in your peripheral vision
I just came.
lol when i stare at her eyes it seems like she get older and older
its fake!!!
copy nd paste somewhere u’ll see. there’s no illusion there
An animated .gif file comprises a number of images or frames to be displayed successively.
Like movie.
Not optical ilusion.
This image have 10 frames.
this is……..
is she mad?
WHAT DO U WISH ME TO DO MASTER?! lol very coool
I’ve done acid, this isn’t new to me.
it made me sleepy.. i’m literally gonna go to bed now.. & bookmark this to help me go to sleep in the futre
You don’t know what an optical illusion is.
I looked at it for 5 min and her face started to change, she got older then fatter then she looked more like a boy and it just kept changing. Cool!
She’s freaking me out – it’s like she’s gonna come out of the damn screen and murder me. |:
What does it expected to do to you ? I did not feel or see anything.
One eye eats you, the other eye spits you out.