How to watch stereograms
Posted 01/04/2010- Well, there it is, I can see it! So big and with large ears, just like the real one!
- But there’s nothing there!
- Try once more. Look through it, just as there’s nothing before you…
- I’ve been looking at this for half-an-hour. I can’t do it. I see only these palms and birds!
- Don’t look at the birds, put your nose on it. No, like this… Stick it to your forehead…
- Now I don’t see anything at all.
- You don’t need to. Don’t look at the picture… Yeah, that’s it. And now slowly put it away… Not so fast! Slooowly… And don’t focus at the picture, it doesn’t exist, don’t look at it, c’mon!
- Oh, there is something, but it’s muddy and blurry…
- Keep on moving the picture but don’t focus at it and this thing will reveal itself… And? Tell me, how is it!
- Wow! I can see it! Awesome! It’s a sheep! Cool!..
- Are you out of your mind?! It’s an elephant! Don’t you see the trunk?
It happened so that I had learned about stereograms before I saw them. My namesake told me at university that there was a picture in a paper which had no definite image but his aunt could see Jesus in it. Then I thought “Oh yeah, why didn’t she see space aliens there?” Much later someone brought a stereogram album to our dormitory, where I could see the hidden image after a long effort. In some years I saw Jesus at one stereogram. Today I am greatly surprised that still there are people thinking that stereos are the mass liars’ conspiracy or just our imagination.

