Tunnel Optical Illusion Is Blowing People's Minds

An unsuspecting driver in the US had their mind well and truly melted while cruising through a tunnel, and we’re still struggling to get our brain cells around the clip he uploaded.

Posted to Reddit, the minute-long video shows a driver happening upon what appears to be a sheer drop in the middle of a concrete underpass, prompting the guy behind the wheel to exclaim: “What the f**k?”

Reddit users were equally perplexed by the footage, with one claiming the scene looked like ‘something out of another dimension’. 

Check it out:

Hitting the brakes in front of the mind-bending optical illusion, the driver can be heard saying: “F**k bro. There’s no signs blocking it off, and I thought I was just f*****g high.”

Reddit user StormShadow250 goes on: “That’s just a pit. What the f**k. They don’t have this s**t blocked off or something?”

Another car then approaches and slows down as it nears the hole. At this point, the driver ponders: “Is he gonna f*****g go?” As the vehicle slowly passes the hole, the person filming the clip realises it’s actually a puddle of water, not a gateway to hell.

“Holy s**t. Oh, it’s water!” he shouts, adding: “I am high.” The driver then clarifies: “I’m not actually high, but holy f**k bro. It looks like a pit doesn’t it? I thought they just carved out a hole. I’m tripping.”

Fellow Redditors were just as thrown by the illusion, with one writing beneath the clip: “I was waiting for the first car to hit an invisible wall or something.”

Another added: “Holy s**t, that was more tense than 90% of modern blockbusters.” A third social media user penned: “What an optical illusion!”

“I tried to figure every possible solution for that out in my head. A tunnel, a sinkhole, but I never thought about a rain puddle,” confessed a fourth, while a fifth, speaking for all involved, simply said: “Wait, what?”

Alamy

For anyone confused about what just went on inside their noggin, rest assured an immediate trip to A&E is not necessary. According to Inside Science, optical illusions are basically just our brains ‘taking a shortcut’. 

The outlet notes that when we see something like this, we're actually seeing the light that bounces off it and hits our eyes. This takes roughly a tenth of a second, but because light is a constant stream, we're constantly receiving information about what we're looking at, 'so it’s really difficult for your brain to try to focus on everything at once'.

Because of this, our brains take 'shortcuts' and simplify what we're seeing to 'help you concentrate on what's important'. In turn, this 'helps compensate for your brain’s tenth-of-a-second processing lag' – optical illusions are images that take advantage of these shortcuts and fool our own brains into thinking something else.

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