June 2, 2021
If you had received my newsletter on March 31, you would have had some fun with pictures. You would have explored Pareidolia.
Fun because you can let your imagination fly and see what’s not there; transform the mundane into art.
Leonardo da Vinci agrees [wikipedia] (emphasis mine):
If you look at any walls spotted with various stains
or with a mixture of different kinds of stones,
if you are about to invent some scene
you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes
adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys,
and various groups of hills.
You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement,
and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes,
and an infinite number of things
which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.
da Vinci saw Pareidolia as a device for painters; a benevolent tool to use.
Sadly psychologists used to view this as an affliction that betrayed an underlying abnormality in a person. A symptom of psychosis. Thankfully, it’s considered normal these days.
After all, isn’t imagination mental imagery of what is really not there?
For the longest time, I had been staring at my bathroom floor tiles and seeing a specific image in random patterns. Just recently something else popped into my mind about the exact same formation.
It’s fascinating!
Time to tickle those gray cells and see what we come up with. Below is a picture of a small portion of my bathroom floor. Take a look and see if you can imagine some people, animals, landscapes, or whatever.
Reply and let me know what all you see.
I see a few things in there. As a peek into my imagination, let me share with you one image I see. Check it out.
Next week, I’ll share other images that come to my mind.
Till then, happy imagining!
P. Venkat Raman
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