Free Choices and Illusions by Eldon Taylor Page A

changes. That is, if you see the witch first, shift your focus and you will see the maiden.
    (Please note: these kinds of illusions can be found anywhere
    and are widely circulated on the Internet.)

    Figure 6
    Here is another either/or image that is quite famous. It is known
    as “faces and vases.” Can you see both?

    Figure 7
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    CHOICES AND ILLUSIONS
    The next illusion involves dots. It reminds me of the hidden
    faces one used to find in the Sunday newspaper. Finding and count-
    ing the faces to win something was the purpose of the ad.
    Below is a scattering of inkblots. Take a look and notice what
    you see.

    Figure 8
    If you look closely, you will see a dalmatian with its nose down,
    sniffing the ground. You can make out the dog’s ear, nose, shoulder, and left leg first, and the rest fills itself in. Once you see the dog clearly, you cannot help but see it—like the hidden faces in the old Sunday newspapers.
    The following image is also a common illusion. Our visual ref-
    erence system often distorts images according to the background.
    The shape in the center is really a perfect circle.

    Figure 9
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    What We perceive and Fail to perceive
    One of my favorite illusions cannot be done on paper. Whether
    you know it or not, there is a blind spot in the visual field that the brain interpolates (fills in). I encourage you to try this illusion. On my website is a spinning disk ( www.innertalk.com/hypnodisk/
    hypno.html ). Go to the website or pick up a hypnosis spinning disk and select a picture that you can turn your gaze toward immediately after you focus on the disk. now stare at the center of the disk as it rotates. Allow your entire consciousness to become totally aware of the spinning disk. do this for about two minutes. Then
    turn your gaze toward the picture you previously selected. An
    amazing thing happens: the still picture suddenly comes alive. It
    is no longer a two-dimensional image; indeed, it becomes a three-
    dimensional, moving world.
    In the provocative film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, psycho-pharmacologist Candace Pert retells a story about the conquis-
    tadors and Montezuma. The story, an allegedly factual account,
    essentially states that when the Spanish galleons approached, they
    were invisible to the Aztec people. The reason was simply that
    the Aztec had never seen ships of that nature. When the Spanish
    approached the shore with their helmets on their heads, what the
    Aztec perceived were gods with golden helmets reflecting the sun
    as they walked on water. The Aztec welcomed them as gods, and
    of course everyone knows what happened. According to the story,
    it took several days of just staring at the water where the Spanish arrived for one of the Aztec sages to finally see the ships. Arguably, this story illustrates how we fail to see what we see, either because of psychological defense strategies and/or the inability to see what is not already in the mind to see.
    A friend of mine, Professor William Guillory, has a model for
    this nature of perception. It is the so-called reality model and looks like the following diagram.
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    CHOICES AND ILLUSIONS

    Figure 10
    The circularity of our perception becomes obvious after fol-
    lowing the arrows in the diagram above. What does not become
    obvious to many is that the diagram represents reality for most.
    In other words, most of us can see the circular looping but fail to recognize that it may apply to us.
    In the next chapter we will look at defense strategies and once
    again make some of them an experience. let me close this chapter
    with a few more fun illusions.
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    What We perceive and Fail to perceive

    Figure 11
    There are no curved lines in the diagram above.

    Figure 12
    There are only white circles between