Reflections

Who is the fairest?

Mirrors (my favorite antique item!!) have had legends, lore, superstition, and myths tied to them for pretty much as long as they have been around.

The ancient Romans believed that they reflected a person’s soul and could bring great strife if they were misused, and indeed many other cultures have various negative, supernatural qualities attached to mirrors, such as they can suck out one’s soul, be portals of death, or offer glimpses into some other dimension.

In many cultures, mirrors are used for communication with spirits, and it is believed they serve as portals or doorways to the spirit world, that they are some barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead.

It is perhaps this widespread belief that has led to the phenomenon of haunted mirrors, so common around the world that there are various disparate cultures that follow the superstition of covering mirrors at certain times, in particular after death, in order to prevent whatever is on the other side from peeking in or coming through, or even to stop a soul from becoming trapped within the mysterious mirror world.

What If I told you? That seeing spectral's and horrifying mutated beings in the mirrored reflections is 100% real?

Science and researched facts are often scarier than what we can come up with in our own mind, or are they the same thing?

I know what you're thinking..huh?

The phenomenon is called the Troxler effect, that fun childhood game, those annoying "3D" images, an often used tool for meditation, and a former form of self-torture that’s enough to drive a sane human absolutely mad

Halloween-related folklore and games such as “Bloody Mary” have given us insights into the frightening potential of mirrors, but an article published in Perceptions in 2016 has lent some actual empirical and scientific credence to these ghoulish superstitions

In a study, in 2016 participants were asked to stare into a mirror in dim lighting for ten minutes.

Results demonstrated that 66% of all participants experienced huge deformations of their own faces,

28% saw an unknown person,
48% saw shapeshifting and monstrous beings.

And overall 3% had long-lasting detrimental and eventual fatal results unable to take the image out of their minds.

These results beg the question: How can staring into a mirror possibly cause our faces to shapeshift into unknown and potentially terrifying deformations? The answer lies in our brain’s penchant for selective processing. In simple terms, our brains can only handle so much information at a time. Right now, as you’re reading this post, you probably aren’t noticing the feeling of your clothes against your skin, the pattern of your breath, or any of the real or mind-created sounds around you.

Your brain simply turns a blind eye to these various stimuli to better focus on what it deems most important (right now, these words).

So much so you're now blissfully unaware of what's behind you!

Try it, it's something to reflect on!