no but seriously I still get chills thinking about turning off my headlamp in the cave and The Hand That I Did Not Actually See, and it’s been twelve years since it happened
it’s such an unreal experience
like
you turn off your light in a cave and wave your hand in front of your face
and
you can see this shadowy thing moving in the black space where your hand is
it looks like the same shadowy thing you would see in your room at night if you waved your hand in front of your face, it’s there and vaguely hand-shaped, and your brain recognizes it as your hand because your brain is aware of where your hand is and what it is doing
But You Are Not Seeing Anything
Inside a cave, there is No Light. No matter how far your pupils spread, there is no light for them to draw in, no light to put an image on your retina.
But your brain just Fucking Assumes that because it knows where your hand is and what it is doing, clearly it can see it.
So it creates a shadowy thing for your eyes to be seeing.
Brain is like “there’s a hand there”
Eyes are like “yup sure thing brain I can totally see it”
Brain is like “nice”
but there is no hand, you cannot see the hand, you are seeing a literal actual hallucination in the cave because your brain thinks it knows best
Caves are awesome, but also terrifying. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
we once went spelunking, and a our guide said that once he was in a cave with a stream, so he could hear running water, and his brain was like ‘oh, running water? that means there must be Ducks out there’. and he saw like…low light shadows of ducks. that his brain just Put There.
As a cave guide: we call that ‘cave blindness’! True darkness absolutely wigs your brain out – we’re such visual creatures that after a while our brain throws a hissy after not seeing anything. Sensory deprivation is a very real kind of torture. We have a huge, deep cave system at work and there are a lot of places where you’re hundreds of meters in solid rock in this tiny, dark, still space.
I like to turn my torch off, sit down with my back against the wall, and wait to see how long it takes before I start seeing things or feeling like the ground is moving, or hearing things. Because I know I’m not – I’m in complete darkness, utter silence, sitting in rock that hasn’t moved in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Proof that brains are Ridiculous and over-react to a lot of stuff!
I want to add to this that people who lose their hearing as adults have reported hearing music “being played loudly from somewhere”, and other auditory hallucinations, bc the brain will just panic and put your brain’s ipod on *fucking shuffle* if it’s not getting any input
i’ve got something like the reverse of ^ that.
one of my ears was literally, 100% deaf. it couldn’t register audio at all.
i get it fixed circa 11 years old, and suddenly i hallucinate audio all the time! my phone ringing, people calling my name, songs, ringing, the whole nine yards.
i suspect it’s not a lack of input so much as it is my brain going “why can’t i hold all these lemons” and fumbling my audio processing.
The flags of every U.S. state made out of their county lines.
Each state has a flag?????
Reading the last reply made me realize that some people have said the name “United States” their entire lives but not understood the literal description of the name and how it applies to how the government works.
Look at this! Look at this fucking thing! This was done in 1986, and used absolutely no CGI whatsoever. It was ALL practical, and ALL done through puppetry. Look at the last gif. Over a dozen vines are moving at once along with its head, lips, and tongue! In interviews Rick Moranis has stated he often forgot he was working with a puppet, as opposed to a really ugly guy. Even today it looks so real. Audrey ii is nothing short of miraculous
The practical effects of Little Shop of Horrors was fucking astounding. It’s worth it to mention that, in the scenes where the plant is moving, the filming was slowed to 12 to 16 frames a second, so that the film could be sped up to give the Audrey II a more lifelike appearance. In such scenes where actors like Rick Moranis had to speak with the plant, he had to mouth his lines at a slower-than-normal speed while still looking convincing, only to have his voice added in post.
It’s also worth mentioning that a crew of 60+ puppeteers were needed to operate the plant, as the entire puppet weighed over a ton.
The motion becomes more solid, and it’s definitely not human, whatever it is. It drops headfirst from a third-story window, a big bite taken out just adjacent; bricks thrown out from whatever blew the hole out.
The thing stops, turns to him with a funny mechanical noise, and swaps from that catlike stance to this funny little hunch, clusters of bloody-red eyelights fixing on him. It makes this noise, a kind of monotone, hollow croak. It raises one curved arm; it doesn’t so much have an elbow as it does a chain of them, some kind of knives mounted astride the forearm. It looks to be readying to shoot, but that endeavor is cut off with a thunderclap.
Or, more accurately, a high caliber round going off about two meters from him.
The thing croaks again, staggering on its double-kneed legs, and collapses in a heap.
The assailant rolls into existence, sort of; he appears in a blue ripple, and gestures for him to keep that big shotgun pointed elsewhere.
Friendly and squid are two signs that come up. The rest are jumbled, out-of-practice. Eventually the slate-clad soldier gets annoyed–at his own lack of skill, it seemed–and points to the dead scrapheap, signing squid again. Not-friendly, there, and then he points to himself. Man. Friendly. You?
Well, if that wasn’t one ugly motherfucker! Rather than shoot the mechanical-organic creature on sight ( as they probably should have ), they merely cocked their head at it, following its movements even as it readied an attack. Not a demon– they’d seen everything Hell had to throw at them, and this guy most definitely wasn’t one of them. A UAC experiment, maybe? The Revenants weren’t exactly normal residents of hell themselves, and who was to say this fleshy thing was any different? Their shotgun made a small click as they pumped it, pointing the barrel toward the not-demon–
Only for it to collapse before they could pull the trigger. The Doom Slayer didn’t get the chance to complain, as their attention was quickly snatched by the sudden ( very sudden! How had they missed him? Unless that was good old teleportation at work ) appearance of the attacker. His stone gray armor and red visor reminded them a bit of a fusion between the Night Sentinels and Samuel Hayden– although, more alive than the former and less of an asshole than the latter. Hopefully. They tossed the shotgun back over their shoulders as requested, followed by a slightly worried furrow of their brow as he struggled to sign. They grasped what he said with ease, sure, but he seemed to be having one god-awful time there!
To cut him some slack ( he was clearly a little rusty ), they kept their own signs simplistic and slowed as they responded.
‘ Squid, bad. Man, you, good! Gotcha. ‘ They pressed a finger against their chest plate, then gave him a good ol’ thumbs up. ‘ Not man. Not squid. D-O-O-M-G-U-Y. Also friendly! Won’t shoot ya’. ‘ A small gesture was made to the ruined city around them, and their expression lost some of its optimistic spark.
‘ What happened? It ain’t lookin’ pretty ‘round here. Wait. Backtrack. Where are we? ‘
Frankly, he’s already tired of garbling his signs. (Seems someone didn’t like being shown up by the new guy.)
That’s when, rather suddenly, this funky, hexagonal logo blazes itself all over 93′s HUD: CryNet Combat Solutions, Nanosuit 2.0. Patents from 2023 dart by, but a few seconds later and it’s all gone without so much as a trace.
And then textcomm rolls up the left; [New York. Lower Manhattan. As for what happened? Not sure myself. I just know there’s squiddie in everyone’s business, and I’m looking for one Nathan Gould. You wouldn’t happen to know the guy, would you?]
The visor turns away, intent red glow dimming, focused elsewhere. One shoulder pinches up in a half-assed shrug, not entirely directed at them.
[Alcatraz, by the way. You and that big gun are going to give these aliens a run for their money.] He kind of, squeezes the grip on his boring, utilitarian dark grey rifle, the alloy or plastic or whatever-it-is creaking a little. Again, he seems a little envious.
More croaking from the blown-out building, and Alcatraz looks up, reflexes almost catlike in gesture.
[Moving might be a good idea, bigass shotguns or otherwise.]
Time's Vengeance 