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Apophenia is a human condition in which deep meaning, patterns or connections are drawn from unlikely things, the man in the moon, Jesus in the formica pattern of Karen's countertop, the face on Mars, only wind in the trees.
Certain variations & levels of apophenia are related to ingenuity, as well as psychosis. There are correlations between creativity, apophenia, manic depression &/or bi-polarity. This makes sense, considering how disheartening it is to convince someone the significance of what only you can see or hear. The emperor is naked, but you cannot prove it. Apophenia is used to dismiss the wide-eyed stories of madmen, evoked by wishful thinking, the sound of a familiar car coming up the driveway, your lost lover's face in the crowd.
We search naturally for clues to our significance, parallel interims & sometimes, for the sake of our own self-preservation, trash the importance of dissimilar ideas. Because to acknowledge them as true would invalidate our own. Some think the world isn't big enough for each belief, though there are fewer religions than people.
Pareidolia, Greek para-(beside) & eidolon-(image), a type of apophenia describing the human perception of great importance in ordinary images or sounds. Onomatopoeia. Metaphor. Rorschach inkblots utilize pareidolia to reveal clues about the nature of mental health patients.
I have a strong involuntary propensity to find faces in machinery, knob eyes, coin slotted mouths. Bunnies in clouds. Smiles on cars. As a child I had to be sure stuffed animals & dolls were comfortable, upright, limbs facing humane directions. The dot matrix printer at my first job would whisper Madagascar, Madagascar. My 7th grade English teacher used to haughtily declare over students caught giggling in class "Ignorance is bliss." She had generously awarded herself the right to say who could read great meaning into what, that laughter was a sign of ineptitude, that intelligent people are rarely joyous.
I saw a used Christmas tree next to a dumpster yesterday. It was embarrassed, raw stump, ornaments stripped like a discharged admiral. Angels & ghosts share jokes in bars. Martyrs were first called fools.
Certain variations & levels of apophenia are related to ingenuity, as well as psychosis. There are correlations between creativity, apophenia, manic depression &/or bi-polarity. This makes sense, considering how disheartening it is to convince someone the significance of what only you can see or hear. The emperor is naked, but you cannot prove it. Apophenia is used to dismiss the wide-eyed stories of madmen, evoked by wishful thinking, the sound of a familiar car coming up the driveway, your lost lover's face in the crowd.
We search naturally for clues to our significance, parallel interims & sometimes, for the sake of our own self-preservation, trash the importance of dissimilar ideas. Because to acknowledge them as true would invalidate our own. Some think the world isn't big enough for each belief, though there are fewer religions than people.
Pareidolia, Greek para-(beside) & eidolon-(image), a type of apophenia describing the human perception of great importance in ordinary images or sounds. Onomatopoeia. Metaphor. Rorschach inkblots utilize pareidolia to reveal clues about the nature of mental health patients.
I have a strong involuntary propensity to find faces in machinery, knob eyes, coin slotted mouths. Bunnies in clouds. Smiles on cars. As a child I had to be sure stuffed animals & dolls were comfortable, upright, limbs facing humane directions. The dot matrix printer at my first job would whisper Madagascar, Madagascar. My 7th grade English teacher used to haughtily declare over students caught giggling in class "Ignorance is bliss." She had generously awarded herself the right to say who could read great meaning into what, that laughter was a sign of ineptitude, that intelligent people are rarely joyous.
I saw a used Christmas tree next to a dumpster yesterday. It was embarrassed, raw stump, ornaments stripped like a discharged admiral. Angels & ghosts share jokes in bars. Martyrs were first called fools.
