MC Escher and Perception

For those of you that have read my previous blogs you know that I have likened perception to a movie projector; beliefs to the film and thought to the interpreter of the movie. You’ll notice that the pictures I’ve included in this blog all challenge perception. MC Eshcher has appeared in some of my other blogs, but I haven’t drawn specific attention to them. Here, he is prominent because I’m writing specifically about perception.

Escher’s art seems to play tricks with our perception. For instance, the ivy covered window faces either right or left, and the window panes are either in or out depending upon how you look at it. The Forgotten Self, since it views perception as a receiver, says that it is a trick of the artist. Escher knew better than that and he depicted it in his art. It challenges us to expand our boundaries and understanding of reality.

All of us have experienced things that we have written off to the world of the “not real.” We see something in a field or in our house that our thinking function cannot accept as real and so we ignore it and assign it to the workings of a tired mind. We go looking around the house for our keys and can’t find them. Ten minutes later we go looking again and find them in plain view in exactly the same spot we searched ten minutes earlier. It is our assumption that our eyes just didn’t land on them the first time. Certainly we don’t think that it really wasn’t there the first time, because that would not fit into our beliefs about reality. There is a THE REALITY and we either perceive it correctly or we don’t. Not so, Yugo!!!

I always wear my watch. I’m a runner and it is as much a part of my attire as my shoes. Last August as I was driving to work I noticed that I had forgotten my watch. It was not on my wrist, forearm, leg, waist or anywhere else. I had on a short sleeve shirt and looked hard a few times. I didn’t miss seeing it, it just wasn’t there. When I got to work, out of habit I looked at my left wrist to check the time, and there it was. I can see the eyes rolling and the lips pursing of those of you that still can’t conceive of perception creating. I’m not nuts (at least I don’t think so). My vision is good. So, the next time you don’t see something you’re looking for and then a few minutes later you find it, remember this blog.
Bill Marshall