• 
    Operating the Creature You Inhabit
  
  
  •    Start Here
  •    Dependence
  •    Learning to Steer
  •    Optical Illusions
  •    The Soul Illusion
• 
    Will & the Illusion of Will
  
  
  •    Two Minds
  •    Determinism
  •    Exercising Will
  •    True Grit
  •    Enhancing Willpower
  •   Perseverance
• 
     Pathology
  
  
  •    The Study of Paths
  •    Matching Considerations
  •    The Impeccable Path
  •    What it Means to Decide
  •    The Open Path
  •    The Enlightened Path
  •    The Truth Wants to Set You Free
  •    An Exquisite Irony
• 
     Emotion Focused Coping
  
  
  •    Coping with Raw Experience
  •    Attachment to Outcomes
  •    Meta-Cognitive Awareness
  •    Mindfulness & Awakening
  •    Curiosity & Being
  •    The Serenity Prayer
  •    The Power of a Will
  •    Hypnosis as Covert Doing
  •    Intention and Attention
  •    Ordinary Trances
  •    Hypnotic Exercises
• 
     Problem Focused Coping
  
  
  •   Stages of Change
  •   Your Core Motivation
  •   Contemplation
  •   The Decision Matrix
  •   The Decision
  •   The Action Stage
  •   The Traps
  •   Action Fork
• 
     Training Tools
  
  
  •    Puppy Training
  •   Warning Signals
  •   Coping Tactics
  •   The Reminder Card
  •   Your Treatment Plan
• 
     Personal Research
  
  
  •   Study the Past
  •   Cheap Research
  •    Hardening
  •    The End

Optical Illusions

Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The images below - while limited to the visual modality - illustrate that perception is an active construction of the mind rather than a valid representation of objective reality.

Escher "figure-ground" illusion

Celestial Bodies

Art by: Octavio Ocampo

Can you find nine figures embedded in the image?

Embedded Dali

There seems to be a white triangle in the center.

Absents of the Mermaid

Art by: Octavio Ocampo

Our Bread

Art by: Octavio Ocampo

Impossible perspectives

Young girl ⁄ Old woman Illusion

Eye Examination chart

Phantom Dots Illusion

Identical Table Tops

Chalk Drawing

Phantom Expansion

Impossible Figures

Necker cubes

Eye Examination chart

M. C. Escher: Day and Night

The red boxes are identical

Man or woman

Face or Vase

Phantom Movement

The diagonal lines are straight

Figures & Backgrounds

The figures are identical

Stare at the image for 30 seconds then look at ground.

M. C. Escher: Waterfall

Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau,

The organizational mechanisms of vision are best demonstrated by illusions. Illusions illustrate that perception is a creative construction that the brain makes in interpreting visual data ....Learning does not prevent us from being taken in by these illusions.
-Eric Kandel

We do not see the world as it really is; subjective reality is a creative construction of the mind. Strong emotional states have a profound influence on subjective experience. For example, if you lapse, you will experience a different set of state-dependent phenomena— including motivation, perception, and response preferences— during the positive outcome expectancy stage in anticipation of the pleasure or relief, than afterwards during the self-loathing stage. Learning the lesson that the first lapse is a big mistake does not prevent subsequent painful relapses. Evidently, learning does not prevent us from being taken in by the Soul Illusion.

The Soul Illusion > >