Unlikely to produce portals to Hell after watching, but no promises.
October 10, 2013 7:08 AM   Subscribe

 
I saw this elsewhere, and it was very cool! Confirming that

a) it really does work, and
b) it really does go away after a few minutes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:11 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


I need some Gatorade after that.
posted by swift at 7:12 AM on October 10, 2013


It went away after about ten seconds with me. But the wavy gravy world was there for a bit. Neat!
posted by chavenet at 7:17 AM on October 10, 2013


wedontliveinaworldofrealitybutinaworldofperceptions

in case you got distracted by the eye-hurting.
posted by komara at 7:21 AM on October 10, 2013


Came across this a few months back and tried to get my dog to watch it with me. He was very engrossed in eating his own foot at the time, so I wasn't able to get a good reaction. If anyone has a more patient dog, I'd like to know your results. For science.

I can haz optical illusion?
posted by phunniemee at 7:36 AM on October 10, 2013 [4 favorites]


It's really neat, in a "boy, can your own brain mess you up in a short period of time" sort of way.
posted by xingcat at 7:38 AM on October 10, 2013


It was a long wait for less than ten seconds of the room looking all wavy. That's the video equivalent of doing nitrous.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:38 AM on October 10, 2013 [8 favorites]


When I was younger, pre-internet, we had this thing you spun on the table and stared at that must have had a similar pattern, because it would have the same effect when you looked away. It didn't talk or have trippy ambient music though.
posted by gagglezoomer at 7:39 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


I can see the matrix!
posted by wabbittwax at 7:45 AM on October 10, 2013


That's the video equivalent of doing nitrous.

I'm guessing you haven't done nitrous recently.
posted by Optamystic at 7:48 AM on October 10, 2013


If anyone has a more patient dog, I'd like to know your results.

Mine felt 'rough', apparently.
posted by Segundus at 7:49 AM on October 10, 2013 [8 favorites]


Whoa, yes.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:51 AM on October 10, 2013


"Came across this a few months back and tried to get my dog to watch it with me."

That's really amusing to me to read that because I just watched it with my cat in my lap and she seemed to watch the screen for a fairly long time. Not the entire length, though. And then she looked at the ceiling for a while. But then she often looks at the ceiling when she's in my lap.*

I repeated the video and wiggled my finger in the center of the screen in an attempt to keep her attention there reliably, because I was really hoping to see her look away from the screen at, say, the wall and then freak out.

It's just as well, because if it had worked, she probably would have looked at me and then I would have lost an eye, or something.

* So, years ago when she was younger and was sitting in my lap, she noticed a spider on the ceiling. From that time on, when she sits in my lap, she periodically scans the ceiling. When she's not in my lap, she doesn't intentionally look at the ceiling — not in this "I'm feeling very content and there might be a spider on the ceiling, let me check" manner. Seriously, this cat is the most easily positively conditioned cat I've ever seen.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:54 AM on October 10, 2013 [8 favorites]


When Guitar Hero first came out I played it a lot. Like a lot, a lot. After one grueling session, I finally shut off the game and walked away, and the whole world was scrolling slowly upwards, opposite of the way the notes scroll down the field (staff? track?) on the Guitar Hero screen. For a few seconds there I was concerned that I had permanently broken my eyes.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:55 AM on October 10, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm going to wait until y'all check in tomorrow to make sure this isn't snow crash.
posted by cotterpin at 7:57 AM on October 10, 2013 [19 favorites]


For some reason I've had this open in a tab on my browser for a week. I just watched it. Now I can close that tab...it's here somewhere.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:58 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Rock Steady, something similar happens to me when I stop moving after walking or driving for a long time. I'll see the landscape receding into the distance, as if my brain is expecting it to be moving towards me.
posted by mollweide at 8:00 AM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Added a blinky wnring to the post, carry on O_O
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:01 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


I finally shut off the game and walked away, and the whole world was scrolling slowly upwards, opposite of the way the notes scroll down the field (staff? track?) on the Guitar Hero screen

Yeah. When I travel by train I try to switch sides pretty often or the world starts getting scrolly on me.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 8:02 AM on October 10, 2013


I'm guessing you haven't done nitrous recently.

Yes I have.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:02 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


There was a Flash game called Super Crazy Deluxe Guitar Maniac II (or something along those lines) which was a side-scrolling Guitar Hero clone. After playing it for a bit and then looking away, everything scrolled in the opposite direction.

This is somewhere between that experience and trying to walk across a striped crosswalk with new biofocals, except in every direction at once.
posted by Foosnark at 8:09 AM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Didn't work at all on me. But I didn't fullscreen it. Will have to try again fullscreen when I'm not at work.
posted by edheil at 8:09 AM on October 10, 2013


That didn't produce nearly as strong an effect on me as the good old whirling black and white spirals thing that did the rounds ages ago.
posted by Decani at 8:19 AM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


You can achieve a cool Alfred Hitchcock zoom effect by going to the very front or very back of a train, and look out the window at a fixed distance down the track. Keep your eye on that point until you reach the next station, then swivel around and look at the train carriage. Depending on whether you were at the front or back of the train, it will look like the whole carriage is shrinking and all the seats are closing in on you, or like the train is stretching out and everyone is moving away from you.
posted by Bugbread at 8:23 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


That's great!!!
posted by ReeMonster at 8:25 AM on October 10, 2013


"good old whirling black and white spirals thing that did the rounds ages ago."
posted by klarck at 8:28 AM on October 10, 2013


Maybe I'm extra susceptible, but half an hour later my eyes are still a bit weird, in an unpleasant way.
posted by Foosnark at 8:39 AM on October 10, 2013


It kind of reminded me of when I used to push my eyeballs into my head as a kid and see static and cartoons.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:44 AM on October 10, 2013 [5 favorites]


I recommend doing this on a LARGE monitor or tv screen, much better than using your lapttewruepworuepofufjjkcbjk
posted by lalochezia at 8:45 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


It gave me a headache.

I also kept looking for the boat.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:52 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Seems like someone I know attempted the eyeglass-lens-invert-vision thing where after a few days your brain suddenly compensates, and then you take the glasses off and everything is inverted (upside-down, right/left) until it switches back. IIRC, he only made it a few hours before it made him too nauseated to continue. Or he was bullshitting me.

I was a bit astounded that there was someone else besides myself who was even tempted to try it after learning about it.

There's some weird part of me that reads "probably won't permanently alter your vision" and thinks "that means that it might! Cool!"
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:58 AM on October 10, 2013


For some of us that was like a walk down Memory Lane (if only we could remember)...
posted by jim in austin at 9:01 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


I didn't read all of the letters out loud and now it won't go away.
posted by orme at 9:10 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


I got to the point where the letters looked all blurry and I could not read them (is that supposed to happen) and then I shut it down and the whole room went ° º ¤ ø . ¸ . ø ¤ º ° º ¤ ø . ¸ ¸ . ø ¤ º ° º ¤ ø . ¸ . ø ¤ º ° º ¤ ø . ¸ and now it's fine.
posted by jessamyn at 9:13 AM on October 10, 2013 [6 favorites]


ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
posted by slogger at 9:28 AM on October 10, 2013 [5 favorites]


OMG THE CEILING TILES ARE ALIVE DUDE
posted by smoothvirus at 9:40 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


It was sort of like Zalgo in real life for about 10 seconds, then my brain said "Nope. Nope. We're done" and everything went back to normal.

Which is a shame, because Zalgo in real life could be a hilarious improvement to slow work days.
posted by quin at 9:52 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Get them off of me, GET THESE BUGS OFF ME! Oh...they're gone. Very cool!
posted by phirleh at 10:14 AM on October 10, 2013


see Tri Zonal Space Warper Omni Magazine 1981

Now get off my writhing lawn
posted by achrise at 10:17 AM on October 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


The best part of this for me was looking back at my screen's wallpaper, since I am currently using one of the cloudy looking nebulae from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The effect of the clouds moving was very very cool.
posted by blurker at 10:34 AM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


wow these walls are really breathing everything is alive man everything is connected oh wait what, no
posted by en forme de poire at 10:44 AM on October 10, 2013


I finally shut off the game and walked away, and the whole world was scrolling slowly upwards

I was looking for wild mushrooms in a forest (it's an extreme sport in some parts of the world) and when after a few hours of constant scanning of the undergrowth for tasty Agaricomycetes I returned home, lay on a bed and closed my eyes, I saw grass moving steadily downwards in my field of vision. Then I opened my eyes and saw that the ceiling is moving, too.
posted by hat_eater at 10:55 AM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Next time don't eat poisonous mushrooms.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:04 AM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


I know my mushrooms, I've never eaten a poisonous one by accident. I wonder though what would be the visual effect of looking for hours for mushrooms on mushrooms.
posted by hat_eater at 11:11 AM on October 10, 2013


Will those of you who were stoned at the time of watching please stand up fall down?
posted by BlueHorse at 8:04 PM on October 10, 2013


32 comments and not one of them mentions the Gorilla walking in at 4:16!
posted by davemee at 2:09 AM on October 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Far out, man. I had to stop because I couldn't tell what was going on. And then the Blue was moving around. That's some serious fx. Thanks for the post!
posted by Goofyy at 6:45 AM on October 11, 2013


Having read the thread now:
I have a big screen. The letters got insanely clear. But then the image itself was warping in ways I think were illusory, and I became confused what was spinning (it or me, or what parts). But also I am back from walking and am still listening to my headphones. This combination actually is considerably potent.
posted by Goofyy at 7:08 AM on October 11, 2013


It's a complex version of the motion aftereffect, sometimes called the 'waterfall illusion' because it was nicely described by Robert Addams after he looked at a waterfall for a long time and then glanced at the rocks to the side of the waterfall and saw them moving upwards.

Essentially you have neurons in your brain that respond to specific directions of motion. If you watch something moving to the left for a while, those cells decrease their responsiveness (switching to energy-saver mode). When you look at a stationary surface afterwards, the net motion is in the opposite direction, so you'd see rightwards motion (as foosnark notes).

Here you have two spirals, one moving inwards and one outwards. It's a more complex pattern of motion that you sometimes see when you move forwards/backwards through the environment (or with guitar hero), but we certainly have neurons that respond to these patterns. When they decrease their responsiveness, you see the opposite, which is a weird warpy thing. Ta da!
posted by horopter at 9:09 AM on October 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


right after i watched it a girl called and said, "seven days." is this typical?
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:08 AM on October 11, 2013 [4 favorites]


"right after i watched it a girl called and said, 'seven days.' is this typical?"

Yes, but I wouldn't worry about it.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2013


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