Magic Eye

Do you remember the craze that was Magic Eye? Optical illusions, I think these were specifically called stereograms, which could only be seen by relaxing the eyes and looking through, not at, the picture.

Many people would stare and stare and see nothing "inside" the picture. Some would get it right away. The clip from the movie Mallrats comes to mind around this. Where this one guy comes to the mall and stares at a Magic Eye every day but can't get the image. All sorts up people come up and say what it is right away and he alternates between dejection and being pissed.

I was one of those people. I could never seen the image in the Magic Eye. This made me a Sad Panda. And then one day, one of my old MFT supervisors at New Perspectives Center for Counseling gave the trick in person when I was trying to stare one down in the hallway at the Center.


Once I got the trick, I could easily shift into that "vision". I can do it quite quickly and I can even look around "inside" the image without losing it. And once I got it, I couldn't stop looking at any stereogram I could get my... eye on.