Mighty Optical Illusions » Afterimages

Beyonce Afterimage Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:49:29 +0000

I don’t know much about Beyonce’s controversial pregnancy, but what I know for sure is that she makes one hell of an optical illusion! What I want you to do (once again) is to stare at this negative photo of her for a minute or so. Don’t forget to fixate the dots on her nose while you’re doing it. After some time, turn your eyes to a plain surface right next to the image (a ceiling or a blank wall would serve fine as well). A “negative of a negative“, a proper image in full-color if you will, will then appear momentarily. The more you blink, the better afterimage effect you’ll experience! If this version wasn’t enough, you may try the full size version located here.

Ninja’s Colorful Shuriken Illusion

Vurdlak — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:10:59 +0000

A shuriken, our word of the day, is a traditional Japanese concealed weapon that was generally used for throwing, and sometimes stabbing or slashing. They are sharpened hand-held blades made from a variety of everyday items such as nails, knives, washers, and other flat plates of metal. When translated from Japanese, it literally means “sword hidden in the hand”. Here in the west it’s most commonly known as “throwing star”, “ninja star” or inaccurately as “Chinese stars”, though they took many different shapes and designs during the time they were used.

So what does all of this have to do with our latest optical illusion, you ask? Not much except visual similarity, I guess. I just thought it would be cool to mention ninjas and shurikens in the paragraph above. Ok, now let me explain how the illusion works – If you concentrate on the central dot in the animation below, after seeing the first frame consisting of two overlapped colored objects, you get the impression next two frames are showcasing isolated objects filled with appropriate fluorescent color! In reality, all frames except first lack color, and what you perceive as color afterwards is just an afterimage burnt in your retina! Don’t worry though, it only lasts couple of seconds…

Concentrate on the black central dot, and see the colors magically appear!

Gorgeous Clown Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:56:06 +0000

There are some optical illusions that simply become viral over night, and jump at you from all across the web in matter of days. Most of the time they contain “juicy” NSFW content, which I’m not in the position to share via our homepage, as we wouldn’t want to spoil them youngsters visiting this site often. On the other hand, those kind of illusions would probably appear problematic sitting on your desktop, embedded right inside our optical illusion widgets. Luckily, there is a solution – as you know we successfully run dedicated and popular Mighty Optical Illusions fan page on Facebook, where you are free to check those “edgy” illusions that we haven’t found place for on our homepage. Moreover, here on moillusions.com I bring you daily illusions (more or less), but if you are subscribed to our Facebook channel, you have the opportunity to see (or even submit) extra illusions in much shorter time span. Check out the 3 or 4 new illusions me and my fans posted since our last post on this site!

For today’s illusion, just stare at the nose of this gorgeous clown below. Try not to blink nor move your eyes for 30 seconds. Then quickly more your eyes over the white surface (ordinary wall will do fine, or use the provided white space below), and start blinking obsessively! What do you see? Hope you liked this afterimage as much as I did! Thanks goes to Mathieu and Mauro for sending this!

Once Again, (Color)Blind Shall See!

Vurdlak — Sun, 22 May 2011 20:21:20 +0000

As we concluded last Monday, occasionally “repeating” somewhat similar illusions shouldn’t be a problem (at least this is what the majority has decided). In practice, the only similarity between today’s animated gif and previous submissions of this type lyes in the way they work. I remember like it was yesterday when John Shadowski first introduced us to this effect. The post was titled “Black and White seen in Color“, and was published almost 5 years ago. For those of you who forgot how these work, wait for the central red dot to appear and then concentrate on it. After some time black and white photo shall appear, which you will then be able to see in full color!

Funky Town Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:35:59 +0000

Remember when South Park was in its very beginning? I remember there was this crazy dude character named Towelie, who was in fact a speaking towel whose only interest was getting stoned (?!). Hilarious! If my memory serves me well, he was a result of a terrible army experiment gone wrong. Dunno why this animation below made me remember of Towelie, but I think it has something to do with that tune “Won’t ya get me down, to funky town” he sang all the time. Anyhow, concentrate on the red dot in the middle of the .gif below, wait for the counter to drop to zero, and watch the black and white town turn colorful without consuming any illegal substances! Drugs are bad, illusions are awesome!

Which Orientation Does Your Brain Prefer, Horizontal or Vertical?

Vurdlak — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:10:48 +0000

Peter Tse from Dartmouth College (USA) has re-invented the classic afterimage optical illusion. If you haven’t encountered afterimage illusions before, I strongly recommend visiting #Afterimages category before reading through rest of this entry. So why is this illusion different? By using it, you can reveal if your brain predominantly sees horizontal or vertical lines! To begin, you’ll need to fixate the colored image (one on your left) by looking at the fixation spot for about 60 seconds. Now shift your eyes to the fixation spot surrounded by rectangular outlines. Which afterimage did you see first? You can manually shift which afterimage you experience by attending to one rectangle and then the other. If you attend to the vertical outline rectangle you will see the afterimage corresponding to it, and if you attend to the horizontal outline rectangle you will see the different afterimage corresponding to it. Now wasn’t this great?!

Pink Rose Afterimage

Vurdlak — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:23:50 +0000

I still owe you an explanation about “what represents a biggest problem for me updating this site, while being on the road”. I started the trivia on August the 10th, and promised to explain myself the day after hearing your thoughts. Unfortunately, we had that malware incident in the meantime, and battling against the bad guys made me completely forgot about the trivia.

The answer is simple – it’s the unstable EDGE/3G connection that gives me headache. I don’t have problems with writing nor finding the illusions, yet uploading and publishing them demands dozen of tries and reconnects. What can I say, it’s my fault I love to spend my vacation in place that has little to do with technology and modern day-life :) BTW, check the rose below – all you have to do is concentrate on the little cross on the left, and then after a minute or so, switch your focus to the cross on the right. The black and white photo now becomes pink.

American Psycho in Color

Vurdlak — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:50:06 +0000

Yup, it’s the American Psycho, also known as Christian Bale. I’m not sure whether the screenshot used in this optical illusion was taken from his Hollywood movie, or whether it’s the paparazzi shot during Christian’s Terminator rampage incident (when he went nuts on stage). If you think I’m joking, listen to the publicly available audio tape.

But all this doesn’t concern us too much, what we’re here for are the illusions. This time we have slightly different afterimage animation. Originally, authors create similar animations that switch between frames every half a minute or so. First you see colorful negative, then black and white photo appears. You get the impression black and white photo you are seeing is actually produced in color, because the afterimage was temporary burnt into your retina. This time we have exactly the same illusion, only frames switch much faster. What amazed me, is that the illusion still works – even better perhaps. To conclude this, I can assure you that there are only two frames – black and white one, and the color-negative. The more you observe, the more colors on Christian appear! P.S. You can check ultra-fast version of this, just be sure you don’t have problems with seizures or something…

Real-life Jesus Afterimage

Vurdlak — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:42:26 +0000

There’s an old saying which points that keeping your mouth shut, is better than telling much without saying anything. Would you buy it, if I told you this was the sole reason you were deprived of new optical illusion yesterday? Naaah, didn’t think you would ;) The real cause is I’m having some workers over my new place, so have to stay with them at the “construction” site, and give guidelines how I want my things done.

Suzanne sent us an interesting animated gif, which is identical to Babunda’s video submission. Check out the animation on your right. Wait for it to cycle back to colorized version, and then stare at the black dot for few seconds. After some time, identical black and white portrait will appear, but if you followed my procedure correctly, you’ll be able to see Jesus in full color! Don’t take me for granted, but I think #Jesus is one of the most occurring tags in our archives. It would be safe to say we are in need for new category to contain these. If you are into color adapting illusions, and would like to see more where these came from, be sure to check the Afterimage category.

Green and Orange Afterimage

Vurdlak — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:43:16 +0000

To remind you what afterimage illusions do; after some period of staring at the certain image, the colors burn inside your eye retina, and after the illusion animation disappears, because of your newly gained super-powers, you’re still able to see the negative image afterwards. Now that we’ve repeated the basics, let’s see what today’s optical illusion does. Stare at the little black cross for a minute or so. After some time, blue and pink letters (that spell incorrect colors) will disappear. Still, you’ll be able to see the previously read colors. Does all this make sense? I had some tremendous trouble with my English today… must be the hangover.

Rainbow Ghost Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:42:24 +0000

You might remember back in 2007, when John Shadowsky introduced us for the first time to the new kind of optical illusion he invented. I’m talking about one that gave us ability to see black and white photos in full color! This is the closest you get to having super-hero powers. It was really an extraordinary value added to the optical illusions field, but also an interesting phenomena brought to attention of those studying visual sciences. The below rainbow is just one of many emerging samples, based on John’s discovery.

To see this optical illusion in it’s full capacity, wait for the animated .gif to loop to its start. You’ll know you’re there when you see a full colored rainbow appear. Now stare at the center dot for few seconds, and at one time the animation will switch. But don’t move your eyes from central dot just yet! What do you see? If you followed my procedure precisely, sooner or later you’ll find out that the animation below consists of two similar images. Only difference between them, is that one is in color, and the other is black and white. After staring at the color rainbow’s central dot, negative colors burnt in your retina, and you were able to see the black and white photo in full color!

Another Mysterious Fleck

Vurdlak — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:18:50 +0000

This one’s so simple, yet so hard to see if you don’t know what you are looking for. I haven’t spot the optical illusion until I read the solution that came with it. Don’t worry, it’s nothing abstract. Just when you spot what is hidden in this image, you won’t be able not to see it after that anymore – ever. Even if someone showed you this very same image years from now. Most of the similar ones were linked in our previous Mystery Dots article, so head there if you liked this one. I can give you a slight hint, though. Check this category to adjust your way of thinking ;)

Twilight Saga Illusion Collection

Vurdlak — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:58:54 +0000

I’ve been working on this website for the last few days, it’s just that the work being done was held on the back-end side. This is why there hasn’t been any updates for the last two days. My deepest apologies.

Anyhow, recently I’ve noticed hysteria among chicks over this vampire saga called Twilight. My girlfriend read them books couple of times, and even forced me to watch actual movie with her. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was bored at best. Don’t know, I simply see it as ordinary vampire move redefined to suit women, but then again – I could be wrong.

Still, if there are any fans of the movie out there, I’ve received these two optical illusions of main actor – Robert Pattinson, so hope you enjoy them!

First one on the right is simple afterimage (if you don’t know how afterimages work, read this first). It works best if you switch your view to blank white screen, after burning the negative image in your retina. Perpetual blinking helps additionally. This one worked great for me! Few more afterimage illusions can be found here.

The second illusion of Robert Pettinson (on your left), is a simple photograph caught in the right moment. When I first saw it, I got impression this dude is wearing some kind of tennis hat and has really alien-ish head anatomy. When you take a closer look, you’ll quickly realize there is actually another person standing behind him.

There, I believe these two illusions weren’t the best ones available, but still we can’t have Greatest Illusions each day. Can we? Btw. check this promotion of Fight Club, done for the 10th anniversary. It will show you the power of Facebook Connect!

Skull Chaser Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:08:57 +0000

Check the animation below, or simply click this image

Here’s an interesting approach to original Lilac Chaser illusion, invented many years ago… Wait for the animation to load, and concentrate on the center dot for a minute or so. Normally the skulls are disappearing in a clock-wise direction, but if you manage to stay still and concentrated, you will experience an afterimage of the rotating skull in places (where there shouldn’t be any). Hope you understood all this babling.

Originally I got this optical illusion from here, and have to admit: I was forced to crop the above and below embedded letters. Sorry dear fellow webmaster, hope you don’t take it against me – it’s just that the letters were too big and spammy for the illusion to be useful anywhere elsewhere than on its original website.

Three Barack Obama Afterimages

Vurdlak — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:49:10 +0000

Barack Obama Afterimage

When the ship starts sinking, all the rats leave it. Same thing happened to my country (Croatia) today. Economic crisis, politic affairs and all sort of bad things came upon us one after another. Recognizing he can’t handle the situation any more, our prime minister resigned. Our government has fallen today, and all this couldn’t happen in worse moment.

Motivated by all this breaking news I’ve been listening to all day, I decided to post something Obama related. At least to give myself a hope for better future. I realize Barack isn’t a Superman, nor anything near a heroic savior United States hoped for, but you have to admit his figure was represented as hope for US, like nothing else was.

I’ll keep monitoring how things evolve in the following days. In the mean time here are some afterimage optical illusions for you to play with. If you aren’t familiar with afterimage illusions, you should check this category first. Its very simple – all you have to do is stare at the center of these images (for a minute or so), and afterward switch your view to some blank, white surface. White wall, or piece of paper should be more than fine. After few seconds, negative image should appear, enabling you to see what was hidden inside those afterimages. If you can’t see it clearly, repeat the procedure, or simply blink repeatedly and the results should appear more sharply.

Another Barack Obama Afterimage Optical Illusion

..and another one