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  • The Optical Illusion That Can ‘Break Your Brain’ For Months
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The Optical Illusion That Can ‘Break Your Brain’ For Months

March 26, 2021 2 min read
illusion

Remember that optical illusion dress that did the rounds on social a few years back and more recently the pink/blue vans trainers? Well, now there’s a new hack that can make you see white and black as red and green…for up to THREE months!!!

In actual fact, the trick isn’t new and was discovered by an American psychologist named Celeste McCollough in 1965.

To make his trick work you have to stare at 2 images of vertical and horizontal lines and eventually you’ll start to see black and white as red and green.

Be warned though – the effects of the illusion could last for at least 90 days! Please do not carry out the experiment for longer than 15 minutes.

To be absolutely clear, we’re not at all suggesting that you should try out the McCollough effect for yourself, but here’s how it’s conducted:

First, you need to look at a test grid of black and white lines to confirm they are indeed black and white. Then you need to stare alternately (for up to three minutes) at the square containing the black and red horizontal stripes and the square with the vertical green and black stripes. To finish, look back and the black and white lines again.

By this point, the top right and bottom right left vertical stripes of the black and white grid should be slightly pink and the top left and bottom right horizontal stripes should look slightly green.

The exact reason the trick works is not completely understood.

Those who have tried it out have had mixed reactions:

One social media user said, “This is the most mind-blowing thing I have ever done to my brain. It’s two days now and I can still see the colours!”

Another person said they got fed up with the optical illusion pretty quickly, “Last time I did this it lasted for a few months. First, it was alright, after a while, I just wanted to see normal lines again.”

If you couldn’t resist the urge to give it a bash and want to reverse the effects, simply stare at the original coloured images again for half the time you originally looked at them, but rotate them 90 degrees counterclockwise.

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