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This optical illusion will literally break your brain

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We love a good mind-trick, and this one will leave you baffled for the rest of the day. 

Remember the green or brown beanie? The blue and gold dress? The girl in the concrete?

There's a reason these optical illusions have gone viral: they mess with our minds in ways we can't even explain! Sometimes they do more than just make us see things that aren't there... they can actually break our brains!

One such illusion is The Ames Window.

Watch as Deane Hutton, host of the old-school kid's program The Curiosity Show, hangs a trapezoid shape with windows cut out vertically from a wire.

You'll notice that as the shape turns in circles, you'll actually just think that it's tilting back and forth.

"Whichever way you look at that, your brain will tell you that the long end is nearer to you," Deane says.

"But now I put back near my body, now it's nearer to me, but it still looks as if its nearer to you, doesn't it?"

"Because you're used to seeing things bigger when they are closer to you."

"Now you know that it's turning around in circles, in fact if you look at it from above you can see that it's turning around in a circle."

"But now your brain is doing something strange, it's telling you that it's not going around in a circle but it's oscillating, in other words it's turning part way, stopping, and then going back the other way."

He then throws a pen in the mix to really send you into a tizzy.

So what the heck is going on here?

Well, your brain is trying to make sense of the conflicting information it's receiving. The trapezoid shape tells your brain that the object is 3D, while the windows tell it that the object is 2D. So your brain ends up missing some of the movements.

The illusion was first discovered by psychologist Roger Ames in 1973, and it's still baffling researchers to this day. Some have even suggested that the illusion could be used to help people with dementia or Alzheimer's, as it can help to stimulate their brains despite the damage already done.

The Ames Window optical illusion will literally break your brain if you stare at it long enough. So don't fight it, just let it happen, and enjoy the ride that is confusion and chaos!

Desperate for more baffling mind-tricks?

Check out the circles below, looks like they're moving around the screen, right?

Wrong! The circles are actually stationary in the exact horizontal and vertical position that they begun in. The arrows and colours trick your mind into thinking the whole circle is moving.

Same goes for these damn diamonds.

Okay, that's enough for one day. I think I need a lie down.

Image (drewcoffman.eth / Twitter)