Friday, December 17, 2010

Pareidolia

Pareidolia is a phenomena that explains a lot of the paranormal. The rest can be explained as error, hoaxes, or in rare cases, demonic activity. 

So what is pareidolia? Glad you asked... 

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. 

Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, or the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia. 

 What is apophenia? Glad you asked... 

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by some dude named Klaus Conrad who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness". So when you see photos of ghosts, aliens (and flying saucers), a bigfoot, or images of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, just remember... pareidolia happens. 

All I'm saying is, don't take all this stuff hook line and sinker. Be a little skeptical. It's good to be skeptical when it comes to outlandish claims.

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