Illusions
So often, what we see turns out to be an illusion. So often, what we believe turns out to be a delusion.
Not long ago I had what I call the BART illusion. I know how real it can feel when you have convinced yourself that something is true.
I once saw a black car facing out of a driveway. Between me and the driver’s side door was a white sign. There was a man looking out of the car. What I saw was a police car with a policeman waiting for speeders. I checked my speed, I was OK. I looked up, and when I did, the sign had moved past. I saw what was really there: a black car with a man looking for an opening in traffic.
There are three illusions I want to discuss here:
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The BART Illusion: I was sure I was right, yet I was wrong.
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Three things I saw while hiking above the Carquinez Strait. I saw, and knew what I saw. And as I looked, what I saw changed.
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The last, and really the most important, was what I call the “Susan Adjust”
The BART Illusion
I have a feeling, a sense, of direction: I feel direction just as you feel heat. And I am never wrong.
Yet I have been wrong: once going to Cape Cod and once at the North Berkeley BART.
When I was in the army stationed at Fort Devins in 1961, I wanted to take the MTA to Cape Cod. At the station, I boarded the train going south to Cape Cod. After a while, I began to see things that indicated we were traveling north. Yet I still felt that I was traveling south. I was forced to see that I was wrong: the train was going north.
I thought about how it could happen, and came up with the fantastic idea that I was sensitive to the hydrogen bonds of water! It was the fact that the ocean was on my other side, to the east. Not to the west were I grew up. And thus formed a concept. Concepts come from conclusions (logic). And conclusions are a step too far. Strangely, I was almost right.
Not long ago I had what I call the “BART Illusion”. I had just walked from Downtown Berkeley BART to Northridge BART, and was going to ride the BART back downtown. I went up to the gate, however it was closed for construction. So I walked around to the other side of the building, through the turnstiles, down to the platform, and over to the Downtown Berkeley platform. Something was wrong! The sign said Richmond! I felt it so strongly, so strongly, that I had walked to the Downtown Berkeley platform. Yet I knew the sign had to be right, so I walked across to the Downtown Berkeley side. Once on the train I sat next to a window on the side where the bay would be when we came out of the tunnel – if I we were going to Richmond as I so strongly felt we were. We came out of the tunnel. There were the hills! Bang! The illusion collapsed and I felt like we were going to Berkeley, just as the sign said.
The illusion was so strong! I KNEW that I had an almost perfect sense of direction! I even had an explanation for this sense. Yet it too was wrong. The bay with the water was still to my west, and I should have felt correctly. After thinking over, I realized the answer was much simpler: my mind keeps a reference to north and accounts for all turns. However the BART building was round: there were no sharp easily remembered turns. I thought I had just gone half way around and would be facing the opposite way: so my mind made a decision on the direction. Actually I had gone nearly all the way around, so my direction conclusion was wrong.
I know how real it can feel when you have convinced yourself that something is true.
Above the Carquinez Strait
The sound of an airplane, then the sight of one. Then it flapped its wings and became a bird. Very common, isn’t it? I see my friend, no wait – no its not.
Driving back from the Carquinez Stait one day I suddenly saw a patch of yellow in a green background. The background was grass along the side of the road. The patch of yellow changed, three black areas were added. Then it became a shape: a narrow vertical rectangle. I gave it a name: a highway sign. And it popped into view. I talked to Dr. Weeks, an ophthalmologist, about the traffic sign and he had some interesting ideas. He said that was how it works, first we see color, then shape. And when we give it a name our mind fills in the details.
The third one was looking into the Strait and seeing a tug boat. Not unusual, there are a lot of tug boats on the Strait. But something seemed odd. I kept looking at it. Then it changed. What I thought was smoke was actually waves in the water. Other details changed, and it suddenly became a cabin cruiser.
The Susan adjust
While sitting and talking after a day together just before she went on her trip, something very peculiar happened. She had just told me how important the Jewish style of relating was becoming to her. We had never before, at least that I could remember, talked about that. She said that even she hadn’t realized it.
When she finished, she looked at me with a smiling face that seemed to say “do you get it?”.
Suddenly something similar to an Ophthalmic Migraine occurred: everything in the room began to jiggle, to come apart – all except Susan’s smiling face. It was somewhat like the falling apart and coming together as something new that I experienced during my hikes above the Carquinez Strait. As everything settled down, it all went back to what is was before! Nothing had changed.
No, something did change: my view of Susan changed. I saw her in a different way, a way that I hope is more real.