I don’t believe in Magic Eyes

[Dewt]

I use Magic Eyes as my password manager. Just encode each site's password into a Magic Eye picture. Yes, other people could do the Magic Eyes and see my passwords, but I firmly believe that people who can do Magic Eyes are good, pure people and it's only the folk who can't see them that I need to worry about. Perfect system.

[flotemysost]

I had one of the books - in the intro I remember it advised that holding the book close up to your face, letting your vision blur then slowly pulling it back should make the image pop out.

Struggling to do it on a screen though. And I probably don't want to be peering closely at screens much more than I already am at the moment.

Oh, and I see people are keeping up the age old tradition of not spoiling the reveal.

Isn't the design/repeated pattern normally sort of a hint to what the hidden image is (apart from the really abstract/grainy ones obviously)?

[ProvanFan]

Heh.

Oh, why's that then?

[BlodwynPig]

it might help if you tell me what it is? I just see the central part raised but nothing distinguishable...thanks

[pancreas]

it might help if you tell me what it is? I just see the central part raised but nothing distinguishable...thanks

It is an anal depression being gaped. You must have it inverted.

[gib]

convergent/divergent stuff

this probably explains why i'm seeing a 3D cave in the shape of a camel, i stared through my screen like i was looking through a window

[here4glinner]

It's just perfect that the first magic eye I ever saw was that super simple camel, and the second was goatse

[Sebastian Cobb]

I use Magic Eyes as my password manager. Just encode each site's password into a Magic Eye picture. Yes, other people could do the Magic Eyes and see my passwords, but I firmly believe that people who can do Magic Eyes are good, pure people and it's only the folk who can't see them that I need to worry about. Perfect system.

K, gonna write an algorithm to read magic eyes for me.

I can't see them, but I've already pulled the code for the generator.

[Dewt]

Yeah, a degenerator, for degenerates.

[touchingcloth]

I discovered recently that it's not normal to be able to unfocus your vision at will (or at least, not everybody can do it). That's probably why some people struggle with Magic Eyes. I'm really good at them. There's a trick to it, but you have to be able to do the unfocusing-at-will thing.

Blur your eyes so you see two images that separate. The Magic Eye will have two points in it that correlate with each other when you do this. The images will separate but these two points will match up. Getting those aligned is the sweet spot for seeing the rest of the image.

The ones with big patterns are easier than the random dot ones. Blur your eyes so that two of the same cyclists overlap. Then the rest of the image should come into focus so that all the cyclists appear at various depths.

This is probably why I can't do them. I can unfocus my eyes so that I see double very easily - I'm doing it ^r_rⁱ_i^g_g^h_h^t_t ⁿ_n^o_o^w_w - but I can't make the individual cyclists move relative to one another, I just see multiple of each one in the same places as they are when my eyes are in focus. I guess you need to be able to go cross-eyed, which I never have been, I always end up looking just up or down.

[NoSleep]

It isn't crossing your eyes (which you would do to look at something closer to you than the image), it's actually widening them out, as if you're looking into the distance behind the image. Don't be too close to the image, either; although the correct distance depends on the relative size of the image you're viewing.

[touchingcloth]

It isn't crossing your eyes (which you would do to look at something closer to you than the image), it's actually widening them out, as if you're looking into the distance behind the image. Don't be too close to the image, either; although the correct distance depends on the relative size of the image you're viewing.

That's what I do when I unfocus my eyes - it's the same muscle move as if I hold a finger in front of my face and then focus on something in the distance behind it. Maybe I need to be able to move my eyes relative to each other if not fully crossing them if what Dewt says about moving the cyclists on top of one another is the right technique.

[Dex Sawash]

Bricks shat

[Blue Jam]

They're real and once I learned to do them I ended up doing it to spot the repeating patterns in wallpapers and carpets and also cross eyed mode makes Spot the Difference stupidly easy.  Your brain literally just sees all the differences as sort of "there and not there at the same time"

I was a bit obsessed with Magic Eyes when I was about 12 and my eyes are still trained to focus on different planes. I do that Spot The Difference trick as well and I do it with repeating patterns when I'm daydreaming and relaxing my eyes a bit. Once I was in town when someone saw a woman in a leopard skin coat and said "Look at her, isn't she cruel?" and I said "No, it's fake, you can Magic Eye the pattern".

[idunnosomename]

Heh.

i think i've seen that before because i recall being disappointed there was no cock n balls

unless you need to go super-crossed or whatever. there was some advanced books that were impossible for me

[olliebean]

I was a bit obsessed with Magic Eyes when I was about 12 and my eyes are still trained to focus on different planes. I do that Spot The Difference trick as well and I do it with repeating patterns when I'm daydreaming and relaxing my eyes a bit. Once I was in town when someone saw a woman in a leopard skin coat and said "Look at her, isn't she cruel?" and I said "No, it's fake, you can Magic Eye the pattern".

This happens to me sometimes with chain link fences. Because I'm focusing on what's behind the fence, which is further away, if the distance happens to correspond with the size of the links suddenly the fence seems to be floating further away from my eyes than it actually is. It's quite freaky, because the parallax when I move my head is all wrong.

[NoSleep]

I used to do it with the channels on recording studio consoles long before Magic Eye pics were around. If you sit at the console you can make the channels rise up.



It works on piano keyboards too.

[Dewt]

Damn, I thought I was the only one who could do my "speeddiffin'" spot the difference trick.

[Pingers]

I believe in Magic Tits

[Johnny Yesno]

I used to do it with the channels on recording studio consoles long before Magic Eye pics were around. If you sit at the console you can make the channels rise up.

The first time this happened to me, I was startled because I couldn't work out what had happened. I'd been concentrating hard on what I was listening to and I thought it was an acid flashback or something. And on that note, I'm not sure I believe in flashbacks. There always seems to end up being some explanation like what we have here.

[Johnny Yesno]

It isn't crossing your eyes (which you would do to look at something closer to you than the image), it's actually widening them out, as if you're looking into the distance behind the image. Don't be too close to the image, either; although the correct distance depends on the relative size of the image you're viewing.

Not always, though, as the wiki article Sheepy linked to explains:

There are two ways an autostereogram can be viewed: wall-eyed and cross-eyed.[a] Most autostereograms (including those in this article) are designed to be viewed in only one way, which is usually wall-eyed. Wall-eyed viewing requires that the two eyes adopt a relatively parallel angle, while cross-eyed viewing requires a relatively convergent angle. An image designed for wall-eyed viewing if viewed correctly will appear to pop out of the background, while if viewed cross-eyed it will instead appear as a cut-out behind the background and may be difficult to bring entirely into focus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram

[Pseudopath]

In particular, those with amblyopia (aka "lazy eye") or who had certain visual impairments in early childhood (even if now corrected) will never be able to see them. :-(

I've got a massive squint (which has only got worse after two corrective operations), but am pleased to confirm that, with some practice, I was able to train myself to see Magic Eye pictures. However, I can only see them in reverse (all the bits that are supposed to leap out of the page actually move into the background). I can still usually figure out what it's supposed to be.

[pigamus]

Colin Blunstone considers rewrite

[Sebastian Cobb]

I used to do it with the channels on recording studio consoles long before Magic Eye pics were around. If you sit at the console you can make the channels rise up.



It works on piano keyboards too.

I had a weird pattern on a bathroom floor in one of my houseshares where the patterning of the fake tiles left black dots in the fake grout that you could sort of see and unsee.

It could also make you a bit queezy if you were having a horrific hangover shit.

[NoSleep]

And on that note, I'm not sure I believe in flashbacks.

Flashbacks are for real, let me tell you. And nothing to do with mistaken visual effects.

[jenna appleseed]

YOU JUST MADE MY EYES GO ALL FUNNY YOU BASTARDS

OW

[here4glinner]

Flashbacks are for real, let me tell you. And nothing to do with mistaken visual effects.

I've taken a lot of acid and a lot of dumber things, and combined a lot of things, and I've never had a flashback. Kinda feel ripped off now you're saying they're real

[jenna appleseed]

Does anyone know make my eyes full uncross so I can stop seeing my noise?
Thanks.

eta: nose, make me stop seeing my nose.
--

2.

Wasn't there a bit in Nelson's Column where somebody tricked a co-worker into believing their screensaver was a magic eye picture  and they ended up going comedy blind/frozen staring into space or something from staring at it for so long.