Take a look at the picture above. It looks like a spiralling rope against a checkerboard pattern right? What if I told you that the image just consists of concentric circles? This image explores the very vast phenomenon of perception and serves as proof that everyone sees things differently.

I like to believe that our imagination and our reality are frequently intertwined, and we often cannot decipher the difference between them. This intertwinement shapes our knowledge and beliefs and affects our perception of everything in life. Take a look at the optical illusion above again. It’s called Fraser’s Spiral. Quite ironic that it’s called a spiral when it isn’t one.It proves that our imagination affects our vision and our vision affects our imagination. It’s a never ending – spiralling – cycle. Our imagination is a never-ending story that, more often than not, conveniently matches what we see in real life. Thus, we go along with it thinking that our reality is based on (visual) fact. 

Science has actually proven that our vision actually runs behind the real world. To be exact, 100 milliseconds behind the real world. During these 100 milliseconds, the brain occupies itself by substituting imagination for real life. This accumulates over time and thus causes the intertwinement of imagination and reality. This intertwinement, almost like the twisted rope in the optical illusion above, builds what I like to call our ‘Spiral of Knowledge’. 

Let’s picture our Spiral of Knowledge as a long helical DNA strand. This DNA consists of sections of knowledge- some derived from reality and others from our own imagination. We can’t differentiate between them, because both reality and imagination are rooted in us, down to the cellular level.

Our brains are wired in magnificent ways and our perception is something that will always be distorted if we keep viewing the world in a straight line. Maybe we should take inspiration from Frasier’s Spiral. Perhaps it’s time to twist that straight line up and see the world for what it really is – a never ending conundrum, shaped like a spiral.