This picture is completely still, but your brain insists, “It’s moving!”
The peripheral drift illusion comes from how we perceive light and shadow. Retinal cells process dark areas and shifts from light to dark more slowly.
This effect is more noticeable at the edges of your vision, where fewer cells handle details, and contrasts feel sharper. That’s when the brain “glitches” and fills in transitions with motion that isn’t really there.
Think about how you imagine something stirring in total darkness.
This asymmetry isn’t a flaw—it’s an evolutionary advantage. Movement on the edges of your vision meant survival: either you were hunting, or you were being hunted.
Peripheral vision is designed to catch the faintest motion, even if it’s blurry. Better to panic over nothing than miss a snake slithering in the grass. Scientists call this a threat-detection bias—your brain’s safety net against danger.
When there’s light, everything’s clear—you know at a glance if it’s friend, foe, or irrelevant. But darkness? That’s a whole different game.
Darkness can hide anything. That’s why we stare into it with a mix of fear and curiosity, thinking: “Is it really X? I hope not. But what if it is?”
No wonder darkness is often linked to evil, while light symbolizes good.
But there’s another perspective. Darkness can be the raw material. It invites the Creator to explore it and extract meaning and value.
When seen this way, the darkness of the earth, the cosmos, or the subconscious becomes desirable. It holds untapped potential, waiting for you to uncover it.
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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