Your Brain thinks you’re Magneto from x-men

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Your brain is about to warp reality [music] and make a video look interactive that is not at all interactive. When I play this video, put your hand in front of the screen [music] like this. Move it slowly. Just like a little bit like that. What you're going to see [music] is digital snow bunching up at the edge of your fingers as if you're pushing it with your hand. At least that's what most [music] people see.

[00:00:25]>> [music] >> Another fun thing [music] to do is to take the screen and look at it and then move the whole phone just a little bit to the left and right.

[00:00:45]Did it work for you? Your brain literally made it look like [music] random digital noise was responding to your movements. With the shaking it back and forth one, it looks like [music] the snow is bunching up at the edge of the phone. In both cases, what's happening is your brain is [music] predicting that you are interacting with the visual world. It's seeing the pieces of information that happen to line up with that prediction and noticing them, emphasizing [music] them, and not seeing the pieces that disconfirm its predictions. Basically, your visual reality is a constant negotiation between >> [music] >> top-down processes like your predictions and bottom-up information, which is what you're actually seeing. The bottom-up information is surprisingly sparse. The [music] top-down predictions are quite powerful. A lot of what you're seeing at any given moment is really [music] just an educated guess. Your brain hallucinated agency when there was nothing but randomness.