Pattern vs Pareidolia on Social Media

 

I take a look on that social media page and see:

Yet another fine example of

    An obvious Indigenous stone effigy

Yet another snake, I say

“Serpent Stacked” or “Serpent Laid”

In courses like entwined snakes

“Yet another turtle right there, in or on that alleged farmer wall,” I say

AND THEN:

Yet another someone says “Euro-American Stone Wall!”

Yet another someone says “Pareidolia!” and sends yet another definition

Which both Mr. Merriman and Webster claim is ‘the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.”

Random, ambiguous, you know, “not really a pattern.”

 

Here’s a basic pattern for you:

1. A Stone Snake-like head

 2. A Stone Snake-like body

  Sometimes a “diamond” on the head (or at the 7^th scale heart),

    Maybe below the head or behind it

Maybe a Stone horn or feather, pointing backward or maybe forward

Maybe undulating up and down or side to side

     Maybe hugging the road or a water feature

Maybe on both sides of that road or water feature

Emerging from a rock face or a split stone

 Connecting to “something” somewhere or maybe everywhere

   Separating “something” from something or maybe everything

    And maybe probably both separating and connecting

At the same time and in every time and always and forever….

 

So yeah, of course, I overlay the image with the imagery of informed imagination

 So that even the most skeptical of skeptics can plainly see

    And for every someone who says, “That really makes it “come alive,” so to speak,”

 Another one or two says, “I really really hate it so much much much when you do that!”

 

Me, I’m just wondering how many more examples I forgot to add…