Magic Eye: The optical illusion, explained

The science behind the stereogram craze of the 1990s. You might have remembered when sterograms appeared on Seinfeld. Learn about how these images trick the brain.

Sources:

[MatBaconMC]

For those of you who are having trouble seeing it, really all you can try to do is imagine that whatever screen you're looking at is transparent, and then try to look *past* it, "into the distance".
The beauty of these pictures is that once you hit the right amount of divergence, the repeating patterns will lock themselves into place, and you'll be able to look around and see the hidden stuff freely, without your eyes converging back. Then, do it enough times and you will have full control over the divergence.
Take it slow though. Start with the picture with the Airplanes, Dinosaurs and Cakes, it is a HUGE help!

For those of you who are gonna say that this is fake, the hidden message at 6:31 is "wow you did it" and "good job", and for the still skeptical, the one at the end is a winky face.

[algae]

I have spent 27 years unable to do Magic Eye, and thanks to Vox and some wonderful YouTube commenters I can now see the hidden images!!! This feels life changing. Thanks, folks!

[lolisaynomore]

This video is 9 minutes long but I finished it 30 minutes later because I paused in each stereogram and now I want to die

[phxsunsfaninsd]

I picked up one of those Magic Books in a bookstore back in the 90s and started reading it. I was fascinated immediately and bought it. It took me a couple minutes and I could see everything. Now after 30 years I can see them in just a split second. I also learned how to do the crosseyed method. My wife has never been able to figure it out and she used to think I was pulling her leg with it. Then the school our son goes to had a science day and had magic eye type pictures. No one was able to get them, then I open the book, and I am like, “horse, truck, boat, cow, etc. the second each page was turned. My wife is laughing because she thought I was lying, but the teacher said, “he’s right, on all of them!”

[Yvaelle]

Annoyingly, despite understanding all this back in the 90's, and again watching this great video on how/why it works - none of these things have ever worked for me.

[CeriusDeluge]

One thing people forget to mention is, in addition to diverting your eyes you must also keep your eyes (head) parallel to the picture. If the pic is straight then turning your head to one side or the other (even slightly) will make this much harder. There were a couple in this video that were skewed to the right and I needed to turn my head to see the image

[RyanHollinger]

... I should probably get my eyes checked out.

[stanstanstan]

1:05 Moscow Building
1:39 VW Beetle
1:40 Triangular prisms from above
4:33 A piggy
4:36 A heart
4:41 Open palm reaching towards you
4:45 A giraffe
4:48 A fishy
6:27 Weird interweaved shape
7:06 Deers playing in a beautiful garden that pops out
7:19 Some squares (hard)
7:24 Lots of cut out recangles overlapping
7:34 Tons of prisms coming at ya
7:35 Same
8:02 dunno lol
8:17 A flower
8:23 Two heads
8:24 A lion or some animal
8:43 A deer
8:44 A turkey with a hat on I dunno;
9:15 A winky face ;)

[SharktopusMilk]

Never could see these, still can’t now. I understand what you are asking me to do, but my eyes will not do it.

[MaraK_dialmformara]

I know I'm just adding to the list of complaints, but I've always felt left out not being able to see them. Diverging my vision just gives me a headache.

[HughWalenski]

When I was a child, I would sometimes accidentally focus each eye separately on a a repeated image in a chain-link fence. This made these stereograms easier to see later, occasionally even doing a "double-deep" where you focus each eye on point's double-wide apart, making the image appear deeper, or in the case of "Magic Eye" (I own a first edition), scramble the image in some cases. Cool piece by Fong!

[flippert]

It's 1995 and I can't recognize anything. Thank you for making me feel inadequate again!

[TheTimWalczyk]

Don't tell me I'm seeing seven cakes when I'm only seeing six

[rai]

I dont think I have these so called "eyes"
cause literally none of those worked on me

[MICQUIAMBAO]

whenever i think i have it my eyes just automatically focuses back on the image. i can't see anything

[Lemau]

All this got me was the same headache and frustration I got 25 years ago when my mom was into these images XD

[adamtak]

Am I the only one who doesn't see anything?

[personalmananap]

1:05 = church
4:34 = mouse/pig
4:35 = heart
4:41 = hand
4:45 = long neck dinosaur
4:48 = fish
6:26 = weird shape like electron revolves around the
nucleus in an elliptical path
7:04 = 3 fawns playing just right above the sun flowers
8:00 = whale/shark (obviously)
8:17 = a single flower
8:23 = front and side view of a bald man's head with slightly long neck
8:24 = goat

[Mineirovsky]

I couldn't see any of images on this video. What do you mean with "relax your eyes"? Do I need to drink some alcohol or smoke some weed to "diverge" my eyes?

[RonFloyd]

As a person who has only had the full use of one eye since birth, this has been very interesting to see the mechanics of how this works. I've never experienced the images that others have, nor any effect from 3-D pictures or movies. My limited depth perception is built from other senses (as shown at 2:22). Quite interesting for sure - thanks, Joss.