The Mirror effect: Is your brain tweaking your reflection?

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Cephei Mar 26 @ 3:29pm

Anyone else get this weird thing when you look in the mirror? At first, its like a shock, Whoa, is that really me? omg, but then after a few seconds, it flips. You start thinking, Huh, Im okay… I look decent, actually. Happens to me all the time. Do you reckon my brain is pulling some kind of trick, protecting me from freaking out by tweaking the image in my head? Like, is it airbrushing my flaws on the fly to keep me sane? Curious if anyone else experiences this or if I’m just wired weird.

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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments

Adversary Mar 26 @ 3:36pm

I would recommend talking with a psychiatrist about these hallucinations should they continue. Doubly so if you've got a family history of schizophrenia.

Craig Mar 26 @ 3:40pm

I am not sure if you're saying you get a
"hey there good lookin what's cookin" or a "I thought I looked uglier haha" kind of vibe.

or if you genuinely mean a
"who is this person in the mirror?" and that you need time to process your physical self existing...

𝕯𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖗𝖘 Mar 26 @ 3:46pm

It's the opposite for me. If I haven't looked at myself for a while, then I look at myself, I often am dumbfounded at how goodlooking I am. Then if I continue to look at myself, the impression fades and I start to feel pretty damn average. If I stare for long enough, sometimes my perception of myself dips to below average slightly. If this is done all day, sometimes I get pretty ugly to myself.

It's probably some kind of novelty effect. Same reason men get tired of their wives probably.