Pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon involving vague or random stimulus being perceived as significant or distinct. Common examples: seeing images of animals or faces in inanimate objects, or hearing hidden messages in reverse recordings.
Apophenia: the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. In statistics, it is known as a Type I error.
According to Peter Brugger of the Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Zurich, "The propensity to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects or ideas most closely links psychosis to creativity ... apophenia and creativity may even be seen as two sides of the same coin." (from the Skeptic's Dictionary)
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Am I Pathological?
Forms lie in wait in the splash of paint, in the patina of metal, in the fold of a cloth, or the tufts of a rug. They wait until I am open to seeing them. I can go for months, looking and not seeing, until one day everything is right and the forms leap out at me. Once I have seen them, I cannot UN-see them.
In the same way, I feel surrounded by words that are waiting for me to write them down. When I am ready to receive them, they come and demand a page to land on. For what are words if not preserved somehow? Evanescent, nebulous; they skitter away if I try too hard to grasp at them, but return insistently to this conduit, my hand, my pencil.
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maybe the words
desire
to be remembered
desire more of a permanence
than a passing thought
or half-heard intake
of breath
written, there is a chance
that, perhaps, you
might come across them again
some day
when you
weren't
even looking
for
them
 |
| "The forms already exist. We choose to let them into our consciousness. If we choose to see them, they become our responsibility." |
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| Did you see me? I was waiting for you. |
 |
| "These are the words that I hear" "words, like images, hover just beyond my conscious grasp. they linger there but when i reach for them they vanish only in keeping still do the words make sense they alight in order, make sentences, until what needs to be said is said" |
