Fabricated Perception: Living An Illusion

The world is as our mind interprets it to be.

[Image courtesy of Pixabay Creative Commons photo library.]

Most of us have read something about brain theory as it relates to our vision and sensory perception. One popular theory suggests that the brain actively and continuously curates and modifies an incomprehensibly complex algorithm based on what it has seen before to create what it will see again.

This algorithm is in a continuous state of development and it works to create our entire perception. As our vision and other senses intake data about the world around us, our brain translates those sensations into the image that we actively perceive based on what the brain has come to expect.

As I understand it, our periphery — the places we aren’t actually looking or focusing — are especially susceptible to “mental interpretation” which works to fabricate our surroundings based on what the brain assumes to be there.

I recently was made consciously aware of this mental engineering; what made me aware of my fabricated perception was that — in this instance — I knew it was in error; I saw and perceived what I knew intellectually was not there.

I’ll set the scene: It was about a quarter of four, northbound on Highway 287 in Wyoming just south of the small settlement of Rock River. There was a slight fog/haze…