Do These Photos Look Different To You? They’re Actually Identical

Optical illusions are a fun way to bend your concept of space, physics and reality to let your brain see something weird. Staring at one for long enough can sometimes make your head hurt because you might not be able to unsee something specific in the photo.

Well, have a look at these two seemingly-different photos of a street.

At first glance, it appears the left-hand photo is closer to the middle of the street, whereas the right-hand image is more to the sidewalk.

However, in actual fact, it's the same bloody picture. Is your mind blown? My mind is blown.

The image has been seen more than a million times on Imgur and Reddit, with some baffled by the reality and others unable to see what all the fuss is about. One person commented: "This is super weird. I can tell that it's the same picture, but something makes my brain not want to believe it. I wonder what specifically causes that to happen?"

Another said: "For me it looks like the roads are going in different directions, like one road forking off. It's hard to believe the two streets are actually parallel."

However, a third user commented: "My thought was 'yup those are the same pictures' feels odd being left out of an optical illusion."

If you're scratching your head, wondering why your brain tries to make it appear like they are different image, this handy Reddit user came to the rescue with an answer.

"It's because the two streets come together at the bottom of the pictures," they wrote.

"Your brain tries to perceive this as one image with a fork in the road and therefore the street in the picture on the left must be at a different angle than the picture on the right."

People have reported using rulers or pieces of paper to see whether different parts of the picture line up. Many say that once their instrument reaches the point where the sidewalk disappears off to the left, that's when their brains try to make the picture look weird.

There are plenty of optical illusions which are based on depth and motion perception, and play on your brain trying to interpret a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional setting.

Credit: Nobuyuki Kayahara

One of the best examples of that is the spinning dancer illusion.

It's tough to work out whether the model is moving left to right or vis versa. If you're particularly crafty, you can change the direction of the dancer and that can give you a right mind fuck.

It's because there aren't enough visual cues in the illusion to accurately determine what's going on, therefore your mind has to fill in those gaps - hence there's either a difference or even a change in perception.

Featured Image Credit: Reddit

Topics: Viral, Optical Illusion, Brain, Interesting, Social Media, Community, Weird

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie