The optical illusion app that makes you HALLUCINATE: Mind-bending moving illusion makes everything around you MELT

• .DO NOT watch if you suffer from epilepsy or are sensitive to flashing lights
• .Watch videos in full screen mode for 30 seconds while focusing on centre
• .Look away and watch the world deform. Effect can last for up to 20 secs
• .Illusion created when brain cells detecting motion become tired
• .After the eyes look away, the cells that detect motion in the other direction are more active and a stationary object appears to be moving
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• By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD

For a drug-free mind-bending hallucination, take a look at some of these incredible optical illusions.

Open the illusion up in a full-screen window as they will work best if they fill your entire field of vision.

Focus your eyes on the centre of the illusion for around 30 seconds before gently looking away into the distance.  

TO TAKE THE TEST SCROLL DOWN TO THE VIDEO AND OPEN IT IN FULL SCREEN...

WARNING: Do not watch if you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy or are sensitive to flashing lights

HOW TO MAKE THE ILLUSION WORK

1. Open the video in full screen mode

2. Play it and focus your eyes on the centre for the entire duration of the video which is around 30 seconds

3. When the video stops, look around you and see how the world deforms in real-time

4. The effect may last for some time and it will cause objects you look at to change shape

What you’ll see, as reported in Gizmodo, is the world melting before your eyes with objects and people being distorted in real-time.

 

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These illusions are not recommended if you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy or are sensitive to flashing lights. 

The psychedelic trick, known as motion aftereffects, makes you see movement in objects that are stationary.

For hallucination junkies who want to recreate the effect on-the-go, London-based Paul Neave has created the 99 cent (60p) Strobe Illusion iPhone app.

The effect is sometimes known as the ‘waterfall illusion’ after Robert Adams described the effect following a visit to the Fall of Foyers near Loch Ness in Scotland in 1834.

Adams notes how if he looked at a waterfall for a short time, then looked at the bank beside it, the bank appeared to drift upwards. 

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE ILLUSION

When watching a waterfall or the strobe illusion the brain cells that detect motion in one direction become tired. 

After the eyes look away, the cells that detect motion in the other direction are more active and a stationary object appears to be moving.

The effect has confounded people for centuries, but experiments that monitor brain activity have now been able to explain how it works.

When watching a waterfall, or the strobe illusion, the brain cells that detect motion in one direction become tired.

When the eyes look away, the cells that detect motion in the other direction are more active and a stationary object appears to be moving.This effect is quite intense for a few seconds, and can last for up to 20 seconds.

What is so strange about this aftereffect illusion is its paradoxical nature.  Although the stationary object is being seriously distorted it also appears not to change.

A sensation of expansion or contraction exists, but the contours of the object do not appear to be going anywhere.

There are different types of motion aftereffect illusion, with the strobe effect being one of the most powerful.

Others include the spiral illusion and variations on the waterfall effect.