Do we see patterns where there aren’t any? People like to say that we have a tendency to see things even when they aren’t there. It’s been named as pareidolia which in itself is a type of Apophenia, which covers things like seeing shapes in clouds or finding the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. And as someone who likes real patterns as well as actual mysteries and theories, it seems an interesting one to look at.

Especially as I have seen a few things that I ask myself whether they are what my brain ‘sees’ or, in fact, has it employed that mechanism to show me what it thinks I want to see. Keeping in mind, your brain doesn’t see anything itself, it just takes in the imagery before you and then does its thing, whether we are aware of it or not. Below are some images from google earth, of the Grand Canyon in America. With street view you can make your way down the canyon from the comfort of a screen, stopping and zooming in where you would like and taking in the geology as you go. And this is where things stand out from others sometimes, or it catches the eye as one might say as being unusual or slightly out of place. As did the below images to me. And it’s down to each person I guess to decide what they are seeing, or not seeing as well may be the case.

And there are many who claim to see what is there, not what is imagined, so who really knows what we see and how we interpret that. Just as mentioned in A Giant Debate, Devils Tower is debated to be the remnants of a huge tree stump by some people, and others say its volcanic and is just a rock formation which appears to be stump like because of its position in the landscape.

So, is it just our minds playing tricks on us as they might say? Or are we making sense of what we see and our brain will naturally give it an overhaul and use our mental reference library to find a familiar shape or idea to liken it to? Working out its place in the picture before us, just as we try to with ourselves and society. And it may just be a tantalising idea, that there were vast and advanced mega cities and civilisations before us, huge buildings, plants and animals interacting very differently from what we see in this time. Or that there might indeed be some of that still around today, either the final pieces of it left to rot and eventually be hidden by the ages or by information, or just perhaps some of it really does still remain and is just hidden away from us. Places like Shangri-La, Atlantis and El Dorado, the city of gold, do of course make for a good story which seems to last, but I can’t help thinking, what if…

(c) MKW Publishing