The Dress Illusion explained!

[00:00:00]Do me a favor. I want you to take a look at this dress right over here. And I want you to tell me what color the dress is. Now, if you've been on the internet for the last 10 years, you've probably seen this thing go viral. Basically, the entire internet blew up because they had no idea what color the dress was.

[00:00:22]Can you see?

[00:00:23]Some people are saying that the dress is black and blue.

[00:00:27]Some people swear that the dress is gold and white.

[00:00:32]But how can two people looking at the same image see two completely different sets of colors? Well, in today's video, we're going to talk about the dress illusion and how magicians can apply this illusion to fool you.

[00:00:51]Hello, my friends, and welcome back to another episode of Magic for Muggles, where my goal is to take the general public and the magic [music] community and bring them together because I truly believe it is people like you that love magic that really make it special for us magicians to be able [music] to perform, right? Whether we show up to an event and perform for you professionally or you just enjoy watching these things on television or on social media, it really is because of you guys that we are able to continue [music] doing the craft that we love so much. So, in today's video, I wanted to dedicate time to just explaining a little bit about how magicians magish. Now, don't worry, I'm not going to pull the curtain back too much. So, if you don't want any magic secrets exposed [music] to you, you are more than welcome to watch this video.

[00:01:39]I'm just going to talk about the general concepts of illusion, how illusion can trick your brain into seeing what's not really there, and how magicians can apply these things to their magic to make it more fooling and to stay one step ahead of you, the spectator.

[00:01:58]Now, before I go any further, if you haven't already done so, please click the subscribe button. Don't forget to ring the bell. That way you guys know every time I upload a new video. These Magic for Muggles videos are going to go out every Monday, whether it be a magic performance video or an explanation video just like this. So, if you enjoy this thing, come on back every Monday.

[00:02:16]I'd love to see you guys. So, let's talk about this illusion. I'm going to bring it right back on the screen now. So, you guys are seeing a dress, and some people swear that they're seeing blue and black, and other people swear that they are seeing white [music] and gold. Do me a favor. Leave a comment in the comment section below right now, and let me know what it is that you guys [music] see, cuz we're going to be coming back to that in just a moment.

[00:02:44]Now, how does this actually work? Before we can talk about the illusion itself, we have to talk about our brain and how our brain actually processes the things that we see around us.

[00:02:56]>> [music] >> Now, the first thing that our brain tries to do when it sees an image like this is give it context. [music] Now, right now, there's not a whole lot of context because you're just seeing a small little picture, and there's not really a whole lot to go on. You don't know if this is inside, you don't know if this is outside, you don't know where in space this thing is. So, your brain is going to start filling in the gaps by making assumptions, right? And usually, to try to figure out where in space this thing is, the first thing that your brain does is start to figure out the shadows, right? Because shadows are a good way to determine where in space a thing is, which way it's orientated, which way the light is shining on it, and all of that stuff.

[00:03:45]>> [music] >> So, to understand this illusion and how shadows work, let's take a look at another illusion.

[00:03:54]So, as you can see, we have a cube sat right here on the grass.

[00:03:59]And uh the top of the cube is gray, and the bottom of the cube is white.

[00:04:05]Or so you might think at first glance.

[00:04:08]Now, if you look very closely at this, you can start to see something is a little bit fishy, right? And that is the fact that the cube looks like it's in shadow, but is it? Is it really in shadow? I want you to take your finger now and cover the white part in the middle, that middle, you know, quarter or so of of the entire puzzle. I want you to cover that with your finger, and you're going to notice that [music] the top of the cube, the black part, is actually the exact same color as the bottom of the cube, or [music] the white part. Here, I'll go ahead and put a little blacked out on the screen for [music] you, so you guys can see this actually happening in real time. Now, how does this work? The top part of the cube is the same color as the bottom part of the cube, but your brain is tricking you into seeing two different things at the same time.

[00:05:02]The first thing that it's convinced you of is that the cube is sat at an angle, and the light source is coming from the top. Therefore, the bottom part of the cube must be white, but it is just in shadow. Whereas the top part of the cube looks more like a gray color, >> [music] >> and your brain automatically assumes that there is a bright light source shining off of it, that it is actually black, but since there's a bright light source on it, it looks a little bit more gray, because that black has been brightened up a bit.

[00:05:34]So, as you saw, this cube really is just gray with a little white strip in the middle, and then gray on the bottom, to make it look as though [music] it is a 3D object in space. And your brain has taken these context clues of a light source shining in from above down on the cube. So, the top part has to be a deep black, [music] but since the light is shining on it, your brain sees it as gray. And then the bottom part has to be bright white, [music] but since it's in shadow, again, your brain sees it as gray, right? So, what that tells you now is that this is actually a cube that's black on the top, but white on the bottom.

[00:06:18]When in reality, it's just a 2D image that's gray on the top and gray on the bottom, but your brain has filled in the missing information based on the lack of context clues, right? And again, it was made clear by putting the little bar >> [music] >> or your finger, depending on how you were able to do it, across the middle of the cube. So, now that we know that, let's talk a little bit about the dress and how this applies to the dress. So, we're going to go ahead and pull the dress up now here on the screen so you guys can see.

[00:06:48]Let's assume for a minute that we're looking at the dress underneath a bright amber light, like maybe the sun, for example, is shining down on the dress.

[00:07:01]The dress in your mind might be blue and black because maybe you're thinking that that bright light, that amber light is casting some kind of uh you know, orange-ish, amber-ish color on the black and making it just look like a lot more of a light gray tone. Kind of like how it did in the cube illusion that we just looked at a moment ago. And then of course, since the dress is blue, your brain automatically assumes that that amber light has washed out uh the blue, right?

[00:07:34]Maybe the light is coming from the back and the thing is in shadow. So, you might assume that this is a [music] blue and black dress that you know, the light shining on the dress is just created this weird illusion where it looks like it's a lot lighter than it is.

[00:07:52]Now, if you imagine that the dress is gold and silver we can do the exact same thing, but this time imagine that it's a white light with a blue, you know, sort of hue to it like a soft not not not the amber white light, but like like a like a a stark blue light. You know, the kind of light that I'm talking about that that very clear white LED white kind of color.

[00:08:15]Imagine that that is shining on a gold [music] and white dress now and you might just think based on the shadow and the direction that the light is facing that this is a gold and white dress.

[00:08:30]But the lighting has cast this sort of blue tint on it darkening it just a little bit. Maybe the light is shining directly from the back so the entire thing is in shadow and there's just no way to really know exactly what color this is just because of the way that the lighting is playing [music] with you.

[00:08:47]Now, at the very beginning I asked you, do you think that this is a blue and [music] black dress or is this a white and gold dress? Leave a comment below if you haven't already done so because I'm going to reveal the actual dress to you right now and not only are going to not only am I going to reveal the dress to you but I'm going to reveal the dress to you in both lighting situations [music] cuz there is a image of a woman wearing the dress in both shadow and direct sun at the same time.

[00:09:21]So, let's go ahead and take a look at that right here.

[00:09:27]That's pretty cool, isn't it? The dress actually is blue and black, but based on the context now, now you have context in your mind that you know that [music] the dress is blue and black while in shadow, but there's a very harsh light that's being shown on the dress. And if you look there, you'll see that that bright light from the sun is causing the dress [music] to look gold and white in the bright light, right? So, depending on the lighting, it really changes your perception of what color the dress actually is. I think that that's a pretty cool illusion. So, now you might be asking yourself, >> [music] >> "Yeah, that's really cool and fascinating, Michael, but how is it that half of the people saw one thing and the other half of the people saw something completely different? Because if it really is just a blue and black dress, wouldn't it make sense that most people would see a blue and black dress?

[00:10:25]Why is it that the divide was so evenly [music] split that half the people swore that the dress was gold and white? And again, this all comes down to how your brain perceives [music] things. Let's try something a little different. Rather than a visual trick, I'm going to try an auditory trick. And in order to do this, we got to make it a lot more quiet. So, I'm going to go ahead and cut out my background music.

[00:10:49]And just like that, my background music music magically disappears. But I want you to listen to this audio clip now, and I want you to ask yourself, what is it that this person is saying in this audio clip?

[00:11:05]>> green needle >> Now, I know that was probably pretty difficult for you to understand because your brain doesn't quite have the context that it needs to know what that garbled sound actually means. But what if I were to tell you that it's actually saying green needle? Go back and listen to it again now that you have the proper context.

[00:11:32]>> green needle >> Isn't it interesting that now that you know that it says green needle, when you listen to it again, you can actually hear what it sounds in the garbled mess?

[00:11:44]But what if I told you that that was a lie and it's not actually saying green needle?

[00:11:49]It's actually saying brainstorm. Watch, I'll play it for you again.

[00:12:00]So how is it that you heard green needle the first time, but then the second time you heard brainstorm? Maybe it's because I changed the audio file and I'm just telling you that it said green needle the first time. I changed it and then it said brainstorm the second time.

[00:12:17]Or maybe your mind is doing it. Watch, I'm going to play it on loop three more times. Each time it plays, I want you to imagine if it either says green needle, brainstorm, or I want you to alternate back and forth between the two.

[00:12:48]Isn't that fascinating? Like you can actually change in your mind exactly what the thing says.

[00:12:58]Right? So now you might be asking yourself, how does this concept apply to the dress? I'm going to go ahead and pull the dress up here on screen again so you guys can see it. I want you to ask yourself, is it black and blue or is it gold and white?

[00:13:15]But I want you to convince yourself that it is black and blue. Like I'm telling you right now it's a black and blue dress.

[00:13:21]>> [music] >> Uh and the reason that it's black and blue is because there's actually a bright amber light shining on it.

[00:13:27]Um it's inside of a shadow and there's actually a light outside kind of hitting it from the back, but you can see just looking at it, it's it's a black and blue dress. The the bright light is hitting it from the front illuminating it making the black look a little bit lighter more like a gray, right? And of course it's in shadow from from from the harsh light coming from the back. So the blue tones of the dress is washed out.

[00:13:51]It's a black and blue dress.

[00:13:54]Or did I lie to you? It's actually a gold and white dress. Right? And the reason it's a gold and white dress is because [music] the way that the lighting is hitting it, it's actually a very harsh white light that's hitting it from the front. It's in shadow. You got that bright amber light coming from the back. So the whole thing is in shadow.

[00:14:13]It's creating this sort of silhouette effect. It's actually a gold and white dress, but just the way that the light is reflecting on it, it's giving it sort of like a blue tint [music] and it's making it look a little bit darker than it actually is. But it really is just because you can see it in the photo. The light is very harsh from the back and it's actually shining to the back of the dress and what you're seeing is in shadow.

[00:14:40]And that is how lighting can play tricks on your brain.

[00:14:46]But now that you guys have the context, that you know that in shadow it's actually black and blue, but with the lighting shining on it it looks different. Now you guys know for a fact that it is actually just a black and blue dress. Right? So now that your brain has context, you know exactly what it is that you're looking at. But without the context, your brain wouldn't know and so what it starts doing is it starts filling in the missing bits of information, right?

[00:15:16]So let's just say for example now what I'm wearing, like my jacket. If you were just looking at my jacket right now, I know the lighting in here isn't the best, but just looking at my jacket right now, you know, what color would you say my [music] jacket is if you had to guess?

[00:15:33]A lot of you are probably saying green.

[00:15:36]Right? And you're not wrong, but did you notice that I'm only just started wearing the green jacket like the last part of this [music] video. I've actually been wearing a blue jacket the entire time.

[00:15:50]And I'm not making that up. I'm not This isn't like a weird funky light coloring edit or anything like that. I really was wearing this blue jacket >> [laughter] >> the entire first half of the video. But, you were so focused on everything [music] else that was going on, your brain didn't really have time to process the fact that my jacket had just changed right in the middle of the freaking video, right?

[00:16:16]>> [snorts] >> So, this is how magicians are actually able to do [music] the things that we do. We spend years of our lives learning how the human mind works and taking advantage of that to create these illusions and misdirection so that you don't see exactly what it is that's happening. If you really enjoy these concepts and you want to learn more about how this stuff is done, I highly highly recommend you check out a television show called [music] Brain Games. I know for a fact it's on Disney Plus, but I'm pretty sure you can find it on other streaming platforms [music] as well. It's called Brain Games and it has absolutely changed the way that I perceive how the human brain works. You can do some really really cool things if you just put your mind [music] to it, right? So, the next time you guys see a magic show, I want you to look around, see what is it that the magician wants us to see, what is it that he doesn't want us to see, and what is it exactly that our mind is perceiving as reality.

[00:17:17]Hey, everyone. Michael O'Brien here. I just wanted to thank you so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, want to see more videos just like it, please go ahead, click the subscribe button, click the like button, the share button, the button button, and any other buttons of that nature. Don't forget to check out my website obrienmagic.com for some really cool magic [music] products.

[00:17:36]I'll see you in the next video.

[00:17:38]Take care.