Note: This is going to be a long one. I didn’t want to split it up.
Sections:
- Introduction
- How Our Senses Deceive Us: Diseases
- How Our Senses Deceive Us: Illusions and Perception Phenomena
- Time, Space, and Colors
- How Perceptual Illusions Are Used in Daily Life
- Bonus
- Conclusion
1. Introduction
Have you ever wondered how we taste, smell, see, hear, or feel? How does our brain perceive an object? How does it figure out where that object is?
Where does our sense of location come from? What do we use as a reference when we know where our car is parked, or how to find our way home? How does our mind adapt to the concept of time and space?
Each of these is an incredibly fascinating mechanism — complex yet somehow simple. The more you read and research, the more unsettling it becomes. It’s strange how our senses and perception hang by such a thin thread.
Think about being drunk: reflexes slow, you can’t even walk straight, the world spins, sounds echo, and sometimes it feels like there’s an entirely different movie playing in your head.
If you’ve ever had experience with any drug — or even just strong medication while you were sick — you might know the feeling. I once experienced losing all sense of time and space. People around me looked two-dimensional, like cartoon characters. Everything was real, yet not quite. Seconds felt like years, and long events passed in a blink. I watched my memories like a movie, sometimes even reliving them. I felt weightless, like I was floating. Touch felt like cotton, sounds echoed in my head, and what I saw didn’t match what I heard. Eventually, I couldn’t tell what was real anymore — my “reality anchors” dissolved, and my mind wandered into an inner labyrinth.
Later, I realized everything had been real — it was my perception that had changed.
A milder version of this happened to me once with just music and light. My body merged with the sound frequencies; light seemed to pass through me until I felt like I was part of it. In nature, I’ve sometimes felt like nature was part of me, or I was part of it.
Once, long before these experiences, I had a dream so real that for an entire week afterward, I doubted the reality of my waking life. When I told my Indian friend, he said, “If it were a dream, you wouldn’t have seen me in it, believe me.” Funny, but strangely convincing.
These experiences completely changed the way I think about perception and senses. The idea that everything we think is true could be flipped upside down was both disturbing and comforting. Comforting because it meant people could experience the same thing but interpret it differently. I stopped being bothered when my “obvious truths” didn’t resonate with others. Politically, mentally, spiritually — everyone is living in their own illusion. Rather than lamenting “why don’t people understand me?”, I’m now fascinated by the miracle when we do perceive things similarly.
2. How Our Senses Deceive Us: Diseases
Time to get straight to the point.
2.1 Vision
Hemineglect Syndrome — Damage to the brain prevents patients from perceiving one side of their visual field. They may fail to visualize or mentally rotate objects correctly.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) — Can cause double vision or blurry vision due to disrupted brain communication.
Diabetes — High blood sugar doesn’t just cause mood swings — it can also damage eyesight.
Stroke — May cause partial loss of vision similar to hemineglect.
Parkinson’s — Blurry vision and loss of depth perception are common.
Brain Trauma — Can cause visual loss and distortion.
2.2 Hearing
Schizophrenia — The brain misinterprets auditory signals, causing people to hear voices that aren’t there.
Epilepsy — Can trigger auditory hallucinations or distortions.
Chronic Ear Infections / Ménière’s Disease — Lead to hearing loss, dizziness, and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Covid-19 — Known for temporary or permanent loss of smell and taste, but some patients also reported hearing issues.
2.3 Touch
MS — Numbness, tingling, and loss of sensation.
Peripheral Neuropathy — Often due to diabetes, causes loss of sensation in extremities.
Parkinson’s — Tremors, rigidity, and motor dysfunction.
Stroke — Can affect pain perception.
Autism — Some individuals are hypersensitive to touch; others feel less.
2.4 Smell and Taste
Alzheimer’s — Brain function decline affects sensory processing, dulling smell and taste.
Covid-19 — No surprises here.
Parkinson’s — Yes, again.
Vitamin Deficiency — B12 deficiency can affect memory and also impair smell and taste.
3. How Our Senses Deceive Us: Illusions and Perception Phenomena
Ever heard the phrase, “Do I believe my eyes or you?” The answer: believe me.
3.1 Visual Illusions
McGurk Effect — The way someone’s lips move can change what we think we hear.
Static Objects Appearing to Move — Optical illusions can trick the brain’s movement expectations.
Impossible Colors — Colors our eyes can’t truly perceive, like reddish-green or yellowish-blue.
3.2 Touch Illusions
Rubber Hand Illusion — Watching a fake hand being touched can make you feel it as if it were your own.
Thermal Grill Illusion — Alternating hot and cold can make the brain misinterpret sensations as burning.
3.3 Smell & Taste Illusions
Power of Expectation — People rate cheap wine as excellent if they think it’s expensive.
Aging — Reduces smell and taste sensitivity.
3.4 Hearing Illusions
Aging — Narrows the range of frequencies you can hear.
Musical Ear Syndrome — Hearing music in silence, often in complete quiet.
3.5 Time Illusions
Time feels slower under stress and faster in routine.
3.6 Cross-Modal Perception
Strong psychedelics like LSD can blend senses — making you “see” sounds or “hear” colors.
Bonus: Shepard & Metzler’s Mental Rotation Test — People struggle to decide if two rotated objects are the same, revealing how visual processing works.
4. Time, Space, and Colors
How do we know where we are? How do we navigate? This mental mapping is fascinating — imagine a sci-fi world where time and space didn’t exist.
4.1 Medical Conditions
- Parkinson’s — Alters time perception due to dopamine deficiency.
- Alzheimer’s — Can distort time and identity.
- Schizophrenia — Disrupts reality and time perception.
- Stress/Anxiety — Can slow or distort perceived time.
- Concussion — May cause memory gaps and color perception issues.
4.2 Time Illusions
- Adrenaline Rush — Makes time seem slower or faster.
- Oddball Effect — Unusual events feel longer in memory.
- Size-Weight Illusion — Expectations change weight perception.
- Ames Room Illusion — Perspective tricks make people appear to change size.
- Stroop Effect — Conflicting color-word tasks slow brain response.
- The Dress Debate — Blue and black, or white and gold?
5. How Perceptual Illusions Are Used in Daily Life
5.1 For Good
- Medical Therapy — Mirror therapy for phantom limb pain.
- Education — Teaching cognitive psychology through illusions.
- Design & Architecture — Using perspective and color to shape experience.
- Art & Entertainment — From Escher’s works to immersive VR.
5.2 For Bad
- Advertising & Packaging — Making products look fresher or bigger than they are.
- Online Manipulation — Dark UI patterns push certain choices.
- Casinos — No clocks to distort time perception.
- Social Media — Infinite scroll destroys time awareness.
6. Bonus: Memory Illusions
- Lost in the Mall Experiment — Shows how easy it is to implant false memories.
- Mandela Effect — Collective false memories (e.g., believing Mandela died in the 1980s).
- Suppressed Memories — Therapy can sometimes create false recollections.
- DRM Paradigm — Brain fills gaps with plausible but false words.
- Media Manipulation — False quotes or events become “truth” through repetition.
7. Conclusion
- Humans are not perfect — nothing in nature is.
- Reality isn’t absolute — seeing or hearing something doesn’t guarantee truth.
- Illusions are everywhere in daily life — be aware, don’t be fooled.
- Don’t expect others to perceive the world exactly as you do.
- Survival in this world is already a miracle — celebrate it.
- Avoid drugs; your brain chemistry is already under enough attack from modern life.
- When evaluating events, resist getting carried away — consider multiple perspectives.
If you made it this far, drinks are on me — beer, tea, or lemonade, your choice.
bahadirhancicek 
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