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You have to see it to believe it, they say. But can we really trust our eyes?

The answer is not quite. It was found that our eyes can trick our brains into believing things that aren’t there and vice versa. This makes us fall for optical illusions, too—images that fool our brain into seeing something differently from reality. They definitely mess with your head, but that’s the whole fun of it.

For your entertainment, our Bored Panda team compiled a whole list of unedited visual illusions that might break your brain if you’re not too careful. To find them, all you have to do is scroll down!

#1 That Bird Looks Like It’s Made Of Chrome

Image credits: hopperjack91

#2 Disappearing Trailer

Other than slightly brightening the image given the dark when we took it, it is not edited. The perspective was just as confusing in person.

Image credits: powerbookguy

#3 A Wave Of Clouds Rolls In North Central Minnesota

Image credits: doggodad2013

Our brains and eyes work together to help us perceive the world around us. For them both to work fast and effectively, the brain develops shortcuts to process the vast amount of data seamlessly and unconsciously.

However, sometimes the view we see, like the photos on this list, can throw a wrench into this smooth process. Optical illusions confuse the brain and can create a mismatch between what is real and what is not.

#4 Car Being Engulfed By The Road

Image credits: TheShadowDemon247

#5 Photo Taken At The Exact Moment The Scene Changed

Image credits: spicerackk

#6 This Photo From Inside A Tent Looks Like Photoshop

Image credits: Ingelo8Jean

Alternating patterns, brightness, tilt, or particular colors can affect our eyes, making them see optical illusions. Continuous exposure to certain colors, patterns, and amounts of brightness can tire our eyes, which also causes us to perceive things differently.

Curious about this, people have tried to create man-made optical illusions that take advantage of things that affect our sight and brain processing.

#7 Caught A Fish And The Photo Makes It Look Transparent

Image credits: Siesta_time

#8 Two Giants?

Image credits: M3COPT3R4

#9 Gigantic Wolf

Image credits: KyomiiKitsune

The exploration of illusions goes way back, as far as the ancient Greeks, but the real boom in studying it began in the 19th century. Scientists who researched perception created simple illusions to show how the brain perceives patterns and shapes, which started the early theories of how our eyes can play tricks on our brains.

#10 Caught This Interesting Contrast In Cloud Formations Today

Image credits: HopefulSwine2

#11 This Dog Had His Own Peep Hole

Image credits: ermingtrout

#12 A Friend On Social Media Spotted This One Pixel Glitch In The Matrix, India

Image credits: ssigea

The Ebbinghaus illusion, for example, demonstrates how our mind makes judgments about size when objects are close to each other. In this picture, you can see two orange circles. At first glance, it may seem that they’re of different sizes, but actually, they’re the same size. This shows that our brain doesn’t judge size in isolation but rather in relation to surrounding objects.

#13 I Came Across These Odd Trees While Hiking A Volcano On Tenerife

Image credits: stoomhap

#14 This Picture I Took Of Two Swans That Looks Like One Swan With A Smaller Second Head

Image credits: Im_DIzE

#15 This Dog Has A Side Quest For You

Image credits: Imgur

The Ponzo illusion also proved that the surrounding context is important for depth perception. This picture shows how the same-length lines can appear to be different lengths when placed between converging parallel lines. If you block out the lines on the side with your fingers, you can see that the lines are actually the same size. Talk about confusing the brain.

#16 In Cute Cat News, My Mom Put Up An Easter Decal On Our Front Door And It Makes Gigi Look Like A Dr. Seuss Character

Image credits: drewsoulman

#17 The City Of Giants

Image credits: haskap1017

#18 Osaka Expo There Is A Hole In The Sky For This Building

Image credits: Raxxla

Later, many other illusions involving lines appeared. One of them is the Helmholtz illusion, which we now use as solid fashion advice. Its creator noticed that a square filled with horizontal lines appears taller and thinner, while an identical square with vertical stripes appears shorter and wider.

That’s why wearing vertical stripes makes the wearer appear taller and slimmer, something that fashion gurus often advise paying attention to when shopping for clothes with stripes. Why this is, researchers are still unsure about.

#19 Veterans Cemetery

Image credits: ltearth

#20 A Stump

Image credits: yosha

#21 My Nephew Is Half Dog Half Boy

Image credits: racecarjohnny2825

During the 20th century, scientists continued to research how our perception works, with David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel discovering that some neurons in the brain perceive different-shaped objects, which earned them a Nobel Prize in 1981. Then the artists experimented with illusions for some time, creating pieces worth studying.

#22 Gigantic Boy Descends Upon A Serene Lakeshore

Actual photo shows a boy posing atop a layer of ice on a stream. The underside of the ice looks like a full-size grayscale landscape.

Image credits: Litcandle1

#23 My Dog Laying Down With His Head On The Curb. Looks Like He’s Been Decapitated

Image credits: nathanddfd1234

#24 An Oval Like Cloud Spotted Over Reykjavík Iceland This Morning

Image credits: maggipedia

Then, fast forward to the 21st century; technological advancements allowed scientists to look into optical illusions more in-depth. With functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers can now analyze how the neurons in our brain respond to individual illusions. What’s interesting is that new illusions are appearing all the time, and even a competition for the best ones is held every year.

#25 This Ain’t No Photoshop, It’s Just Paint

Image credits: xxUTKARSHxx

#26 Floating Woman

Image credits: csprosper8

#27 Spotted This Optical Illusion On Holiday In Italy

Image credits: Few-Cod5303

Last year (2024), the winner was The Static Spin, which includes a gray picture of a ballerina. The way it’s portrayed makes it seem like she’s spinning without anything actually moving. It’s a variation of an older illusion, where motion is seen without anything making a move.

Even though our brain is powerful, all these illusions show that it’s still too limited to process all the visual information our eyes need to take in. So our mind takes shortcuts, which brings us to our initial point that seeing doesn’t always mean that we should believe it.

#28 Somewhere In Russia

Image credits: reddit.com

#29 From The Right Angle, The John Hancock Building In Boston Looks 2D And It Freaks Me Out Every Time I See It

Image credits: pinheadcamera

#30 Tried To Take A Photo Of A Grasshopper On My Windshield, But It Looks Like It’s Giant And Destroying The Town

Image credits: AhoffNYC

#31 Big Seagull

Image credits: jhn96

#32 Rug Depth Perception

Took a photo of my new kitchen rug that had been delivered, but the rug is sitting on the taller box it came in. Didn’t realize until I sent it to my sister that it looked like an AI rendering (and also 5x the size).