Hallucinations or Reality
“There is a school bus in my back pasture,” the lady of the manor exclaimed, grabbing her binoculars. ?
Briefly, she wondered if she ought to call the Sheriff rather than dealing with the problem herself. After all, if folks are already breaking the law by trespassing on private property, they might not respond favorably to a polite request by the owner to bugger off. But then she recalled the time Hubby caught the Sheriff trespassing and hunting on their property.
After chatting with the Sheriff, Hubby discovered that a neighbor, Gina, told the Sheriff he could hunt on the property, which by the way, did not belong to her. When Hubby’s wife asked Gina about the mixup, the neighbor explained that the previous owners allowed hunting on the property. The busybody assumed that rule still applied.
“We don’t do any hunting now,” wifey replied.
“Oh, you’re tree huggers,” Gina sneered.
“No, we’re not. However, this is our property now and our rules.”
Oops! We traveled down another rabbit hole. But, in any case, when this writer took a closer look, there was no school bus. Instead, the whole thing was a combination of sunlight hitting the large orange gate between two pastures. The school bus was yet another of her countless weird hallucinations.
Throughout her life, this writer has experienced this phenomenon. Namely, that first glance at things produces an image that does not exist.
For example, a frequent hallucination involves seeing a tall truck somewhere ahead in the traffic line. As the traffic progresses, this silly driver realizes the vehicle was merely a light and angle trick of the eye. The tall truck turned out to be the side of a gray building. The illusion? The result of various twists and turns of the road. ?
Your humble writer has seen her fair share of similar illusions. But she is not alone. People often experience a moment when a brief glimpse seems to offer something more. Something tantalizing. But when they look again to verify what they saw, that initial illusion vanished. Was it just a trick of the light or a sign of an active imagination? In any case, such experiences are briefly entertaining, offering a peek into the mind of the beholder.
Your humble writer did a bit of research, which turned out to be partially helpful. ?
According to BrainFacts.org: “Vision beings with light passing through the cornea and the lens, which combine to produce a clear image of the visual world on a sheet of photoreceptors called the retina….The information from the retina — in the form of electrical signals — is sent via the optic nerve to other parts of the brain, which ultimately process the image and allow us to see.”
Once again, when we look up information, the source does not read our minds and desires. It only provides dry, unimaginative facts. This process is similar to how people deal with each other. No one bothers to read the other person’s mind. Consequently, misunderstandings occur.
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Please note, dry facts do not consider the role played by our imagination. Imagination is the game-changer. Without that priceless gift of creativity, life would be boring. Writers and artists would not exist. Or, if they did, their products would not be as sublime. ?
For example, a straight photograph would only result in duplication of a scene. However, the elements of vision, composition, and talent allow a photographer to conjure a work of art. The same is the case for landscape artists. Imagination is the spark that transforms a plain meadow into a bucolic artwork.
The more fertile your imagination happens to increase the possibility and frequency of those unusual hallucinations.
Consequently, that perceived movement in your peripheral vision enhances the experience for an imaginative person. It presents the viewer with an opportunity for a moment of contemplation on the possibility of ghosts, hidden burial grounds, or even parallel universes.
One of this writer’s favorite road illusions involves the ubiquitous Do Not Pass signs. At first glance, her mind frequently replaces the “a” in Pass with an “i.”
Forgive this writer’s slang moment. A fertile imagination is this writer’s jam.
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