This optical illusion was first described by the German physiologist Ludimar Hermann in 1870. Your eyes see gray spots at the intersections of a white grid. But the moment you focus directly on the crossing lines, the spots vanish.
There’s still no clear explanation for what’s known as the Hermann grid illusion.
A lot of our perceptions work the same way. They flicker at the edges of awareness, creating a nervous buzz in the background.
I remember walking home at night as a kid after hearing stories about the “Black Hand.” I’d jump at every shadow. My imagination eagerly filled in what wasn’t there.
The mind is cautious by default. It marks anything strange as Danger! That’s survival instinct. Those who didn’t react this way didn’t live long enough to pass on their genes. The paranoid ones made it—but they looked over their shoulders, slept poorly, and bit their nails.
Sometimes the flicker doesn’t fade. It grows. Every day, your thoughts pull toward the anomaly like iron shavings to a magnet. The strange thing begs to be put under a microscope.
But there’s a problem—when emotions run too hot, your subconscious does anything it can to dodge the truth. “I need to prep more,” you say. “I’m not in the right headspace.” “Some other time.”
What you need is someone to help focus your scattered attention into a laser beam. Someone to give you a container—a special time and space where you can finally break your usual pattern.
That someone doesn’t have to be a person. It could be a journal.
Once the anomaly is held in the light of consciousness, it might turn out to be nonsense. You exhale. Your energy returnы.
But if it turns out to be something real—and dangerous—you can study it safely, like a 3D model turning in space. And that’s when the strange thing often reveals its gift.
Either there is no monster—or he bows and says, ‘Master, how may I serve?’
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
About me:
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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