Sometimes we see things that aren’t there. We’ve all heard the term, “Your eyes deceive you,” and the reality is that there’s a lot more to this saying than we think… because our eyes are always deceiving us.

We don’t see the same range of colours as other species of animals. We don’t see bands of light such as infra red. We have a blind spot that our minds fill in. We see a version of the world around us, and while it’s a fairly accurate perception of the world, it’s still only a rendering of what’s there.

So there are many things that we are unaware of. Things that happen too fast for us to fully see. Even our frame rate for seeing things affects what we see as and interpret. We don’t see a hummingbird’s wings in flight. Do hummingbirds?

We can’t see as far as a hawk. Nor are we as aware of movement in our peripheral vision as hawks. Birds wouldn’t be very good flying hunters if they only had the eyes of a human.

On top of our eyes naturally deceiving us, our mood and disposition further skews what we see. We see half of a glass of water and some consider it half empty while others see it as half full. Different observers can see two people conversing and can feel curiosity, jealousy, or even no interest in the conversation. Each of these perspectives alters the meaning behind what we’ve observed, and ultimately colours the experience for us… changes what we think we see.

I find it an interesting thing to think about. Our visual impression of the world is just that, an impression. It’s a form of deception. We have a specific lens of the world that is not true as much as it is interpreted. And, it is interpreted based on a reasonable facsimile of the world, not a true view of reality.

We are observers with imperfect observation tools, which while deceiving us also gives us a good enough grasp of reality that we can share our experiences… and others find what we experience to be congruent enough with us that we walk around believing we see the world as it is. But really we don’t. We are constantly being deceived by the limitations of our eyes. And for the most part we believe that the world we see is the world that actually exists, not just our limited but effective interpretation.