With so much MIS-information on social media these days, it is wise to NOT believe everything you hear or read. But see!?! Can’t you believe your own eyes??? Of course, the old saying, “Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see” dates back to before the internet. In fact, it is attributed to both Edgar Allen Poe in the 1800’s as well as Benjamin Franklin in the 1700s!!! But how can you NOT believe what you SEE???
Case in point, look at the photos below. Yes, they are upside down but from that position they look perfectly normal, right!?! Now turn the paper around and look again. Wait… what!?! Did you see that?? You’ll probably want to turn it back and forth a couple times. Go ahead. AMAZING, right!?!
Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you and there’s no funny business going on here. You are experiencing what is known as the Thatcher Effect (named after former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, because her photo was first used to illustrate the effect in the 1980’s.) This fascinating phenomenon demonstrates how AMAZING your brain is!!!
It is challenging for your brain to process a photo of a face that is upside down. However, you are so AMAZING that your brain can override what is real to establish something that makes sense to you. Look again at the upside-down photos. Even now that you are aware that something is not right, your brain still processes them as normal. Once it’s right side up, the way your brain usually sees things, it becomes quite obvious that something is wrong. In fact, what you see is that the mouth and eyes are upside down.
Our brains are constantly trying to make sense out of everything we experience, what we hear, what we feel, and what we see. When we look at things, light passes through the individual parts of your eye and is transformed into nerve messages, those messages get sent along the optic nerve to your brain where they are interpreted as objects. This is why even seeing is not always believing.
Your AMAZING brain is trying to make sense of your environment. It does that ALL the time and in countless different ways. Our brains determine not just how WELL we see but also to some extent WHAT we see. To quote Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it.” This is particularly good information to have in today’s world because it can keep us from jumping to conclusions about what we think we see. It can help us slow down, look at things from every angle, and exhibit caution before we criticize others for not seeing things as we do.
Also important, of course, is the brain’s ability to receive and interpret messages passed along by the nerves. This is another great reason to keep your nerve system functioning at its best, and your family chiropractor can help you with that. Whatever you see, it makes sense to see your chiropractor regularly to be your most AMAZING self!!!
—By Judy Nutz Campanale, DC, ACP
