Pareidolia on canoe trips

[Glenn MacGrady]

I just learned a new word, so I feel compelled to use it once in my life, especially since I believe I've experienced it.

Have you ever experienced visual or auditory pareidolia on canoe trips, such as in the woods, the day sky, the night sky, the horizon, outside your tent, or in the water?

 

[Alan Gage]

I get musical auditory pareidolia any time I'm around rapids. After multiple days on a river with a lot of whitewater it gets very annoying and might drive me to insanity if it went on for enough time.

Alan

 

[Aslowhand]

Pareidolia? Absolutely, I experience the visual form of this phenomenon all the time. Be it in clouds, water, the forest, snow, a campfire, campfire smoke, rocks, etc., I see things that aren't there. The attached image is a good example: isn't that a deer swimming in the lake?


No, it's a piece of driftwood.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

No, it's a piece of driftwood.

Yeah, but what about the small alligator crawling along the shore?

 

[bartcanoed]

Definitely, on a recent trip, Blue Herons were so ubiquitous that every branch started looking like one.

 

[yknpdlr]

Certainly have that experience. During the Yukon River races, after more than 24 hours of continuous paddling through the night, pareidolia is quite common. One of my voyageur canoe paddling partners often sees plates of food rising up from the turbulent surface water. During the Yukon 1000 mile race, the mandated 6 hours of “night” rest (practically amounts to 4 hours or less) at randomly self-selected primitive unestablished campsites does not help.

But the most dramatic for me, and a few others, was what we call "faces of the Yukon" in many sections of river. Especially just below Fort Selkirk where vertical rough hexagonal crystals of basalt cliffs tend to have dark spots in just the right configuration to make eyes, nose and mouth obvious to the sleep deprived race paddler. We took turns pointing out and identifying people, animals, and other cartoon-like caricatures. I distinctly remember seeing a complete figure of Albert Einstein, complete with wearing a rumpled suit coat and wing tip shoes. There is a very plain buffalo image that I look for and have seen on multiple trips. Several talus slopes tend to look like a man wearing a voyageur toque knit hat with mustache and a long flowing beard below made of sandy gravel debris. By the way, it is possible to sleep while race paddling. Just zone out, continue to paddle and turn on the automatic listen for the “Hut” to switch sides effortlessly and without consciousness. All while watching for the faces staring at you.

I am obviously not the only one to see these faces, as I found in an art store in Dawson City the following prints that now hang on my wall at home, seeming depicting the more creepy side of basalt rock faces of the Yukon imagery:

 

[tketcham]

Driftwood or... ?



I see all kinds of creatures when I go canoeing. Sometimes they actually turn out to be wildlife.

 

[MrPoling]

I get musical auditory pareidolia any time I'm around rapids. After multiple days on a river with a lot of whitewater it gets very annoying and might drive me to insanity if it went on for enough time.

Alan

Yes. I often hear voices around small rapids. Especially in places where I expect there to be people.

It's especially difficult because with the undergrowth, it can be hard to see. So you can't tell if you were really hearing people or not.

 

[Alan Gage]

Yes. I often hear voices around small rapids.

For me it's music. It's like hearing a very muffled radio or a live band playing far away. I can hear it just enough to pick up the style of music and some of the tune but voices and instruments are mixed and muddy with nothing being clear or standing out. It just repeats over and over again. I only hear it when I'm not paying attention and it's very odd when I suddenly become conscious of it and it's like someone suddenly turned off the radio and all I hear is the water. The same thing happens with any white noise such as a loudish fan or AC unit running.

Alan

 

[MrPoling]

I was walking along the New River one snowy winter day. As i approached Lower Keeny I heard music. Faint, indistinct, drifting over the roar of the drop.

I hadn't seen boats or footprints all day.

Someone had left a big wind chime on a riverside tree. It was pretty surreal.