Haunt Weekly - Episode 434 - Mind Tricks

Transcript

[0:23]

Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly,

a weekly podcast with the Haunted Attraction and Haunted Tama community.

[0:35]

Mind Tricks

[0:31]

Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.

And this week, we come to you to talk about mind tricks.

Woo!

[0:43]

Cautionary Tale

[0:44]

Woo!

Woo! Oh. Oh, maybe not that kind of mind tricks, but mind tricks.

Ways in which the human mind is stupid.

Other than just leaving absolutely asinine reviews, which we're getting to in a minute. Yeah.

But yes, indeed. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea,

that's fine. There are literally over 400 other episodes.

Check out all of our other stuff at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Twitter,

Facebook.com slash HauntWeekly, YouTube.com slash HauntWeekly.

Wherever you get your podcasts from well on

that note everyone uh see go through the

first notes really really fast um work we

did for our haunt we actually ended up doing all of our physical work you had

a hurt shoulder so we were kind of limited all of our physical work was done

at the yarn store yeah we moved pegboards set up a new display we did a whole

bunch of stuff there and it actually took a fair amount of time and then we

tried to do a project which was both haunt and home related it here.

It actually has a dual purpose because we were setting up a safety rail which

would be used by our actors and by our haunters, especially in the trick-or-treat area.

[1:56]

And that did not work. Nope. Because and this is, I guess, our cautionary tale.

When we came up with this idea, we did a lot of research into it because we

wanted our safety rail to actually be a safety rail.

Yeah. Not an unsafety rail. Well, yeah.

And we knew there was the real point. We could make an unsafety rail.

That's like five seconds. Exactly. It's like five seconds with a chop saw. We're done.

No, we wanted to make an actual, honest to God, proper, strong,

and take the weight of a human being safety rail.

And we did a lot of research into it. And we found a kit that looked like it was good.

We looked at the specifications of the kit.

And we took very careful measurements. We were within the boundaries of the specifications.

[2:45]

And then we went to set it up and we were not in.

And it was bad because the only way we found out was literally fully assembling the rail.

Yes. And then going to put it into place and finding that it will not work after we assembled it.

Literally like spending two hours on this.

Yeah, it was a waste of time. And money. And money.

Yes. And we're trying to figure out what to do with it. Now,

both the project in general and the rails we bought, I think we might be able

to do something with them in the haunt to get some use out of them. Yeah, we will.

But honestly, because they really weren't that much, and the hassle of sending them back is a lot.

But we're going to look at a better, different solution now.

[3:29]

Research Mistake

[3:27]

We're just going to go a different path with this. Mm-hmm.

Because that, and the piss off. The thing that chaps my ass was we read all

the specifications online and determined we were in the parameters.

But neither of us watched the video. No. Because we read the specifications. We read the documents.

We RTFM'd, even.

And so you actually watched the video to see what we were doing wrong when we

were like, why isn't this working?

Like, oh, yes. Yes, and by the way, add a foot when taking these measurements

to ensure that you're in the frame.

[4:03]

That would have been useful. Nowhere in the text.

No. Fucking nowhere in the text. No. Sorry, I'm a little salty about this.

Not at you, obviously. Well, yeah, I know. Because the bad thing is this.

We often talk about how that's a you mistake or a me mistake here,

like who made it like that.

But the thing is, this time around, we both took measurements.

We both did the math. We both did this independently of each other and came

up with the same conclusions.

And we both have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to figuring this

shit out. But believe me, we both came up with the exact same answers.

[4:41]

And I'm salty about it because it's not our fault. Yeah.

It legit can't be at that point. Let's talk about something funny now. Let's move on.

Okay. Because last, every week we ask a question. Last week we asked you basically

what was the topic of last week's episode. was what are your favorite,

what's your favorite meme review? You guys had some doozies.

Christine Campbell said, This is an R-rated movie advertised as an all-ages family event.

Cut off baby heads? Question mark? Gore is not haunted. It's graphic murder

scenes intended for 12 and over.

I love that 12 is the cutoff for the graphic murder scenes in this person's mind. Sorry.

We drove in from blah blah blah on a Sunday afternoon only to walk out after

the chopped up body with organs hanging out.

[5:30]

I was expecting a zone for kids and the gore would be left for the evening. False advertising.

100% this cash grab is run as a gimmick.

Only a lawsuit will change their company or just don't add family when you advertise.

Put it in the description. Mutilated baby corpse.

Could cause concern in young. could cause concern in y'all,

Not damage, not harm, not traumatize. No.

Concern. I think Mutilated Baby Corpse would be a great name for a baby face metal band.

[6:14]

All right. Well, Alex Berlin kicked in with, they don't even hide the evil.

These people are sick. And these people are sick is all capitalized. Yeah.

You know, that's just the review you put on the billboard. Yeah, exactly.

What do you want out of me? I don't know. They're doing the promotion for you

at this point. It's like all those slogans for Golden Corral riff tracks have been writing.

[6:38]

Yeah. Maximus Christian Bryant said, I have looked for this review and I can't

seem to find it, but there was a guy who came to Dent Schoolhouse,

and I'm putting that, I'm leaving that name of that in there.

This is Maximus Christian Bryant. Everyone knows him. Yeah, exactly.

But I purchased online tickets for the Akron Haunted

Schoolhouse almost four hours away and totally

different owners then he goes on google

and gives us a one-star big review because we

would not accept the ticket i laughed at the absurdity of it i get the confusion

but that isn't our fault yeah okay like we had an incident with a haunt where

there was two haunts with the exact same name yeah and we ended up buying tickets

for the wrong one we We bought one for one in South Carolina when we were looking

for one in the Mobile area.

[7:25]

And basically, we ended up working with the owners to ensure that their social

media presence aligned.

Because the problem was, and we found this out later, was if you punched in

their name plus Mobile, you actually got the South Carolina one first.

Which, A, that is kind of on Google before anyone else. I specified Mobile.

I don't know what more you fucking want out of me. but anyway so

but so yeah but these aren't the same name no like

a quick glance like didn't schoolhouse didn't akron are not the same words and

then they added a word and a haunted schoolhouse so i don't know but anyways

uh reggie wood my favorite is a one-star review that a haunt scared their 13

year old who then had nightmares for a few weeks after because.

[8:11]

And they wanted a refund. I will say that sometimes haunt actors can be overly

aggressive and can over-target people who are being scared and can traumatize.

I would take that as maybe a lesson, but that's not a refund. Yeah, sorry.

No, because you are there to be scared. If you are too scared,

you can always say the safe word and hopefully be let out.

[8:34]

Yeah. You know? Yeah, if you say the safe word or ask to be let out and you

[8:41]

Scare Responsibility

[8:39]

are not let out, then a real problem arises.

Yeah, then that should be in the review. Yeah, and that part should be in the

review, 100%. Amanda Hughes said, a potential customer posted online asking, how scary is it?

And a customer responded, it's about as scary as Leprechaun 5, Leprechaun in the hood.

We all had a big laugh about that for weeks. Now, I've got to say,

when I saw this comment posted, I almost corrected her.

Almost corrected her. Because I was 100% sure that it was Leprechaun 5, Leprechaun and Da Hood.

D-A Hood. I was like 100% sure of that. It was maybe a Berenstain moment,

but I looked it up before I did that because I was going to have a good laugh about that.

And no, it actually, proper grammar matters in the Leprechaun series is what I've learned.

It's Leprechaun and Da Hood. That is the correct title. title

um so i think that you've been uh in new orleans too long yeah it's very likely

they're very very likely um but that is such a weird call out yeah like just

a random leprechaun movie yeah like what about the one in space so what about

that one how's it compared that one.

[9:48]

And but in my personal favorite of this list just for the reason you'll see

[9:54]

Acting Timing

[9:53]

in a second and Joshua Rose, St.

Pierre said, my favorite comment to date said relies too heavily on actors. Mm-hmm.

[10:04]

Yeah and you know what uber relies way too heavily on these car thingies and

um and mcdonald's way too much on hamburgers i mean yeah i mean if they want

to go and see giant animatronics and stuff like that and not actors then there are haunts for them but,

you're not going to get the same scares as you

do with actors i have i mean i

have personally going through haunts there have been plenty of

occasions where i have said a haunt had too

few actors yeah there is

not enough people i've said that lots of times i cannot

think of a single time in which i thought a haunt in general had too many i

thought they've had too many in one area where they were created a clusterfuck

and they were tripping on each other but that's not the same thing as relying

too heavily on actors right and in those instances a lot of the times it was

a mismanagement of actors.

Yeah, exactly. Because it was a lot in one area and not enough in another.

And you spread them out a little bit and it'd be fine.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just take the peanut butter and spread it out on the bread

a little bit. It'd be fine.

[11:09]

Yeah, yeah. And that's not relying too heavily on actors.

There's just too many actors in one room or one zone that are tripping over

each other and causing problems for themselves.

[11:18]

Positive Reviews

[11:18]

So, yeah, this week's question of the week is the opposite.

What is your favorite positive review? What is the review you that made you the most proud.

Let us know, hauntweekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Twitter, Haunt Weekly on Facebook,

and youtube.com slash hauntweekly.

[11:35]

Well, it is an even number episode. That means it's time to do the conference

[11:40]

Fear Expo Live

[11:37]

reminders. And Crystal, kindly kick us off.

Hey, April 12th. It's Fear Expo Live, 12th through the 14th,

sorry, at Owensboro, Kentucky at the Owensboro Convention Center.

Free admission, ultimate haunt tour featuring six haunts, costume contest, and more.

[11:57]

East Coast Haunters Convention

[11:57]

Fearexpolive.com. All right. Then after that, April 25th through the 28th in Oaks, Pennsylvania.

It is the East Coast Haunters Convention at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center

Friday Haunt Tour featuring Eastern State Penn Bates Motel and Pennhurst Asylum.

That is an all-star lineup.

Other world parties Saturday night done by the same people that bring to you Trans World.

[12:27]

Spooky Swap Meet

[12:23]

Eastcoasthauntersconvention.com for more details. Spooky Swap Meet.

April 26th through the 28th in Los Angeles, California at the Heritage Square Museum.

It's a great place to purchase those gently loved items.

This is from the creators by co-founder Midsummer Scream.

Spookyswapmeat.com for more info. And finally this week, May 11th is Halfway

to Halloween Expo in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds.

[12:55]

Halfway to Halloween Expo

[12:54]

I can never say that on the first try.

Over 140 vendors, food trucks, and a hearse show. Learn more at.

[13:05]

Halfwaytohalloweenmi.com Alright, some interesting shows coming up.

Gotta say, it's some fun stuff.

[13:12]

Time Perception

[13:13]

Alright, well now that we've killed about 15 minutes of the show,

we actually get into the main topic this week, which I'm going to come clean

because that's what I do on this show.

A lot of this is based upon a podcast I recently listened to.

I will be linking to the episode in the show notes prominently.

But this is by the History of the Universe YouTube channel slash podcast. I treat it as a podcast.

They pretend they're a YouTube channel. But I just listen to it because,

honestly, I don't need it. But they basically do cosmology, quantum physics,

stuff like that. It's a very, very fascinating channel.

I often listen to it as I'm falling asleep.

And now, unfortunately, since I've been listening to it as I fall asleep,

I can't listen to this stuff without falling asleep, which is rough because

I'm very interested in it. and it's going to make our trip to LIGO upcoming

very, very difficult. Yeah. But anyways...

[14:03]

Published their most recent episode is entitled does now

exist question mark and it's basically a look at

the concept of now because one of the things they talk about

is the idea of time you know the past the present the future and all that and

how it all intermingles and does time even exist we don't know there's actually

a what a fucked up shit going on with time when you get right down to it and

this podcast actually explains a lot of it like basically uh you know,

like how fucked up time gets when you start traveling,

you know, close to the speed of light and things like that. It gets into some

really, really messed up stuff.

And like I said, a lot of this stuff is not useful to haunters.

Because like I said, unless you can get up to the 99% of the speed of light,

I don't see much of a use for special relativity here. I'm just saying.

Yeah, we're not reaching that here. That is true.

I know that your props can go fast. But I don't think they can go 300,000 kilometers per second.

[15:04]

So, yeah, I think you're going to have some problems with that.

But so a lot of it is not super useful. Very interesting.

Still definitely encourage you to listen or watch the whole thing.

But, yeah, not a lot of it is going to be super useful here.

But they did have a couple of sections in the podcast where they talked about

the ways the human mind interprets now. now.

And that's what I want to talk about in this episode, because it got me thinking

about all the ways in which the human mind is basically dumb and how we can mess with it.

And that brings us to the main overarching principle here and what I want everyone

to kind of think about. The big idea is very simple.

Though we think and feel and swear on a stack of our various religious They're

just preference documents that we are living in the now, that we have a now.

We are always, always, always living in the past. Is now now?

No, now is not now. Spaceballs lie to you.

[16:03]

We are not at now now. We are then now. Yes.

It's terrible. So there's actually five reasons for this. The first is the speed

of light. Okay, that one's not going to help us a lot.

Because both light and sound have finite speed. Sound, obviously, is slower than light.

But basically, a good example of this is if you look at the moon,

you're actually seeing the moon as it was 1.3 seconds ago.

And something else I learned from this was that it's like a half moon,

and there's a dark side, a dark half and a light half of it, like when you look up.

The dark half, if you look close enough, you can actually see a reflection of the Earth sometimes.

It's called Earthshine. It shines on the moon, and you can see it.

And that Earthshine is the Earth 2.6 seconds ago.

[16:54]

Because it's got to bounce from, anyway. Yeah, no, I get it.

It's just okay. Yeah, I've never noticed it either, but apparently it's a thing.

Well, I mean, so you can see the outline, but I thought that that was just the moon.

Yeah, so did I. But apparently if you look at a powerful enough telescope,

you can actually see a reflection of the moon, of the Earth.

A very faint reflection. I mean, and of course, as most of us have learned at

some point in our lives, the sun is eight minutes in the past.

And then you start getting into further away things, and it just gets absolutely batshit insane.

So speed of light. The second reason is that there is a delay between when the

input reaches you and when the input reaches your brain.

Yes, it has processing. Your brain's doing the little circle.

No, this isn't your brain even getting involved. This is just a signal making it to the brain. Yeah.

For example, taste takes 100 milliseconds to reach your brain.

Anything you taste, you were tasting over a tenth of a second in the past.

[17:55]

So that's a frightening thought. Though certain flavors are faster than others,

which is like really fucking weird to think. But apparently sweet is the fastest flavor.

That makes sense. It really does. Because that's the highest calorie,

highest density. We probably evolved to.

So if you were playing around with scents in a haunt, sweet scents are going

to hit your brain faster? Yeah, probably.

And touch travels at about 75 meters per second. So that's a lower delay, but still a delay.

And then when it gets to your brain, then the brain has to do the swirly bit.

It has to process the signal. The raw signal has to be made into the useful thing.

Because all it's getting is those little electrons, like from your eyes,

those optical nerve gets these weird electrons fired into your brain.

And your brain's got to go, okay, that is a picture of blank.

[18:44]

It's got to figure out. That takes time. Yeah, that's the space that I like

to play in a lot in The Haunt.

[18:52]

Is that time when the signal reaches your brain and your brain's trying to put

together what it's seeing. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's got to find a way to interpret it.

And then not only interpret it, but put it into something familiar to you in

a way that you understand it.

Because it can't just, like, show you something totally alien.

[19:11]

No, because if it shows you something totally alien, your brain's going to try

to interpret it as something familiar, as something that it knows.

That's how it works yeah and then

once your brain is done processing the signal has to travel the

other way for the response yeah once

again this takes time so basically

we're always living in the past and how much

it is it seems to be very much up for debate depending upon

a the sense that you're focusing on like smell for

example between the time it takes smell to travel from

thing and how slow it moves through your body smell probably

is the longest of smell or

taste would probably be the longest um but like

just with eyesight the minimum the absolute

minimum seems to be around 100 milliseconds before you recognize anything that's

a tenth of a second that's not long but it's an eternity at the same time um

and there are some estimates that for especially for intense visual information,

we can be living up to 15 seconds in the past.

[20:23]

Which is just wild to think about. Mm-hmm. So, basically, that's what we're

going to talk about today.

Some of the various, I guess you would call them, workarounds your brain uses to deal with that.

Because it's not really practical to live actual 15 seconds in the past.

No. It doesn't actually work. No. You would probably be tripping over shit all

the time. At the very least, right?

[20:53]

Two to Three Second Rule

[20:47]

Yeah. So, yeah, our brain has workarounds that are themselves vulnerable to exploits.

And that's what we're talking about today. And the first one is the craziest

one to me and something I had not heard until this podcast.

And really the genesis and the reason that I wanted to do this.

And then it's the two to three second rule. And I'm not referring to what happens

when you drop food on the ground.

Which is totally a thing that people talk about. is the two to five second rule.

It is also referred to as the temporal integration window.

Basically, if you think of our brains as computers.

[21:26]

Our brains seem to operate on roughly a two to three second loop where basically

we are every two to three seconds taking a new stock of what's around us,

sort of reevaluating our settings and our surroundings.

Refreshing. And a good example of this is if you have a tick or a task or something

that you do like all the time, like regularly, like scratch an itch or rub a

thing or something like that, you're doing a repetitive task.

Odds are you're doing it even without realizing it in loops of about three seconds.

And the reason is your brain's going i'm rubbing

this i'm rubbing this i'm rubbing

this but it's filling every slot in that sequence with

i'm doing this if that that's how it believes it's actively

engaged in the task is because every cycle

it's a it's starting a new cycle of

you doing the task so that the way the brain

interprets it that's you doing something consistently through

the entire time um so yeah now basically the whole point of this is that anything

that happens within that window your brains can process and figure it out and

move on from it's like compartmentalized.

[22:49]

Um, anything longer than that creates potential problems.

Any stimulus that overruns that, so to speak, can create problems.

It's a little bit less, a little bit more processing powers required, basically.

Um, and they actually talked about a study from 2014 in which they showed subjects

a, it was roughly 13 seconds in total,

but it was a clip of a foreign, I don't know why they said, so insistent on

saying it was a foreign film that was muted because it's like,

It's just a film at that point.

Exactly. It's just a silent film. It's just a silent film. I don't know.

But anyways, it's a silent film.

But what they did is they showed it.

They would chunk it up into various batches, basically.

And those batches would be varying lengths, but the frames within the batch

would be randomized so that the actual images could be displayed in almost any

order within that batch.

So the batches were in order the frames within the batches were

not and what they learned is that if they did the batches about between two

and three seconds long people could understand the film people were able to

process that understand reorder everything and move on but if they did them

longer than that people could no longer understand it.

[24:11]

Scare Impact Window

[24:12]

So yeah basically it's the situation where that's like the time that our cpu

cycle runs so what does this mean for haunting well basically if you want if

you're doing a startle type scare,

if you want them to process a scare and have the full impact of it you have

a three second window to get it in.

[24:37]

And stop and think about how long that is. It's not very long.

[24:43]

Right. We often talk about the scare and retreat almost.

[24:47]

Maximizing Pop-Out Scares

[24:48]

So this is for like pop-out scares. Yeah, pop-out scares.

So if you want a pop-out scare to have the maximum effect, you come out for

three minutes. You do your thing. Three seconds, yeah.

Three seconds, yeah. Three seconds. Do your thing and get back as fast as possible

so that the brain doesn't have time to process that whole three seconds.

Yeah, basically it doesn't have, it's not overflowing into the next segment. It processes that.

It has its reaction and nothing else. It's a pure reaction.

And by the time that it finishes processing, you should be out of this scene.

Yeah, and they should. And then it's totally fucking confused.

And then the next sequence in that is on to the next thing. Yeah.

Yeah, basically. That's what you want to do. Now, if you want to do something

that's unsettling or creepy, you overrun that. that.

You keep it going over multiple iterations and that way they're having to do

the additional processing and thinking.

Because like I said, with a pop-out scare, you don't want them to think.

It's a react. You want them to react.

That's your three second window. You hit them with that three seconds and you

get the fuck out. Boom, gone.

But if you want to give them creepy, unsettling, make them ill at ease,

you overrun that. You give them a more stimulus.

You make Make them activate those additional processors that try to tie those

segments together and try to get a cohesive image.

You make them put that extra brain power in.

You don't want them thinking when it comes to the pop-out scares,

the pure boo, you know, not boo, but the ah, you know, whatever scares.

You don't want them thinking about that.

[26:15]

You don't want them thinking about that. You want them, but the scares you do

want them to think about, the scares you do want to have kind of stick with

them and carry with them, they have to overrun that.

You have to have more than the three seconds of interaction.

You have to be present with them. Does that make sense?

It does. And what if you start adding in elements at, like, three seconds?

If you add in a new thing. Like, if you do a pop and then you add in a spooky

noise from another direction.

Yeah, well, three seconds is actually kind of like, like I said,

the heartbeat of the brain, basically.

Yeah. So, yeah, doing an interval noise or something every three seconds would

probably be very unsettling.

Yeah. And would actually set, and might even, I don't know this one,

but it might actually, you know, follow the, might set the brain's cadence to that.

Mm-hmm. Because one of the things they talked about in this is that the brain,

that is kind of like the heartbeat of the brain, but shifts when it starts and

stops based upon the stimulus it receives.

[27:14]

So that's something else to think about. But yeah, I suspect that if you did

like a hard noise, like a bang or a pop or just like a thump,

like a cane on the ground type thump, you know, like that, it would be very, very disconcerting.

But the other element of it is, if you're trying to do a sort of,

for example, with you with a shovel that you had to drag on the ground,

doing it within a three-second window the last time you did it loses its impact.

Because you've already hit that scare. You've already hit that window.

You've got to wait for the next window three seconds later, then get them. Yeah.

Understanding this three-second window can change everything, basically.

It's really got me rethinking haunting in various ways. because like I said,

if you want to startle, you want people to have a scare that they don't think

about, hit them and then get out.

And then if you have to do it again, do it after the three seconds has passed.

And then, cause you, then you've got a new, new frame.

Right. And it's the difference between, so using the shovel as an example,

it'd be the difference between scrape.

[28:17]

And then lifting the shovel. Yeah. And then waiting a few steps.

Yeah, sack beats. Yeah, yeah.

And then scraping again versus just dragging it behind you. And then that's

an unsettling, discomforting fear.

Yeah. That makes people very, it makes people really fucking uncomfortable when

you do that. Yeah. But yeah, you see those two different types of fear.

Three seconds is the magic time frame, it seems.

And that's multiple studies seem to have confirmed that. And I just find it

so weird that we think so hard that we live in the now and that we're,

Moment to moment, beat to beat, millisecond to millisecond with this world.

And no, our brain has a fucking heartbeat that is very rigorous, it turns out.

And it's like I said, it does a little core dump every few seconds and does

a complete reevaluation of the surroundings, opening you up again.

[29:06]

Uncovering the Brain's Cadence

[29:06]

So, yeah, it's really, really interesting stuff. And I did not know about this

and I'm going to research it more because I'm sure I'm messing things up.

From the sexy this is from one podcast and a few articles i read but

this is such an interesting idea that i'm

surprised haunters aren't talking about more um it's

it's so cool it's such a cool idea and i'm really going

to think about this and i bet because reading

about it uh from the notes i have not listened to

the podcast but reading about it from the notes it

sounds like things that magicians use too some

of the how sleight of hand actually works yeah we're

getting into that's the the next one actually that's actually really

interesting that you mentioned that because the next effect

is called the stop clock effect and you can

do this one right now um we're an audio only

podcast so you're gonna have to bring your own clock the podcast the

video and you're gonna have to get an old school clock or

you can get probably i think a digital one but work on a tv that

has you need a second hand or a

second number or whatever you need

seconds on your clock clock basically is what it comes down to and

what you're going to do and you're going to look at the clock and you're.

[30:16]

Going to watch some seconds pass by then you're going

to dart your eyes away and then dart your eyes back

and then you're going to note the next tick

of that clock takes a really long time feels

like fucking forever and i used to know this all the time in class because i'm

old and we would go to class and they had the old timey round clocks with the

red second hand and moving tick tick tick tick and you just sit there and watch

it and whenever the class got quiet you could hear that fucker going tick.

[30:48]

Like that but anyways because multiple times it'd be i'm looking at the teacher

what time is it look up and then i would swear the fucker was broken because

the next tick took so long i thought it was just because i was bored,

and it may have been that i wasn't helping i admit but it's not the only reason

there's an actual visual effect here and because basically your your eyes are stupid stupid.

Your eyes are always moving around. They're darting around.

And that includes everything from reading multiple lines in a page or on a website

to just looking around the room you're in to whatever.

You're always, your eyes are always on the move. And you might notice that you never see a blur.

And one way to actually test this, if you really want to fuck with yourself,

I tried this, and it's kind of a mindfuck.

Look at yourself in a mirror and try to watch yourself move your eyes.

[31:49]

You can't do it. It's fucking weird, man.

You can see the aftermath fine, but you can't actually see your own eyes move.

And the reason is because basically when your eyes move,

your brain sees that blurry image and goes basically barfs and then throws those

frames away and just shows you a freeze frame of what you landed on.

So it shows you what you're looking at but it shows you you know it front loads

it basically allows that frame to skip yeah all the way to the front of the

queue and then it holds on it until it's covered the time that passed because the blurred frames,

um it is absolutely wild and this effect takes up to 100 milliseconds which

you might note is on top on top of the 100 millisecond delay you're already

experiencing just for living.

[32:51]

So up to a fifth of a second of your life disappears into the ether.

You are behind up to a fifth of a second just because your eye looked at something different.

So give something different for eyes to look at. Yes, exactly.

And here's the thing. By the way, weird fact about this. It's not long.

Like I said, only 100 milliseconds.

But it happens so often every day. You lose up to 40 minutes of information a day.

That's 40 fucking minutes of your day is just deleted from your brain because it was too blurry.

[33:28]

Yeah that um that makes sense it does but it's terrifying what the fuck was

the alien doing to me in this 40 minutes or the ghost buggery meter in the 40

what's going on it's like what the hell It's like, what the?

There's a conspiracy theory shit here.

Mm-hmm. Man. So how can we use it? Obviously, get people to dart their eyes around.

Yeah. Basically, if you can get someone to dart their eyes, you now have basically

200 milliseconds between when they do it and when, you know,

something can appear. You can jump out.

Or one thing you may want to think about is a lot of people will jump out and

do a scare and then immediately start moving.

Mm-hmm. Well, the problem with that is they're not going to see that fucking movement.

Yeah. So pop out, freeze, let them reset, then move.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Basically, if you want them to see all of your motion, if you don't want them

to see all your motion, you can probably fuck with them pretty hardcore,

but you'd have to move really, really fast.

I was trying to think of a way this could really be useful because,

like, humans really don't move on this scale. but digital effects can. Well.

[34:44]

Yeah, digital effects can. I was also wondering if setting up a scene so that

your eye doesn't have a place to stop.

Yeah. Like, there's so much interesting... Like a dot room or something like

that, but with all the interesting things on the wall. Well,

I was also thinking about a museum hallway.

[35:04]

Yeah, okay, so there's just a ton of weird things. Yeah, a ton of things that,

you know, your eye wants to look at. A roadside attraction. It's going around

and, you know, different things are spotlighted, so it bounces from it.

And that is one of the things I did find, like, really, I don't want to say

disconcerting is a bit strong, but so uneasy feeling when we were at the Abita

Mystery House was that it is so cluttered and so full of stuff,

your eyes really don't know where to rest.

Yeah. So you're always darting around and you're probably losing a shit ton of time.

You're probably self-stroping at that point and not even realize you're doing it.

Yeah. And the other thing is, is that I don't know if this goes better with

the first or the second point,

but using your brain's expectations of that familiar feeling that we were talking

about really messes with people.

That's like when we set up the hallway in the back, set it up as a gallery.

So there's like lots of pictures at different heights, at different brightnesses of light.

So your eye doesn't have a place to just land.

And then we hit the scare by setting up the expectation that the scare was just

another painting by putting a frame around it on a sliding door.

[36:25]

Manipulating Eye Movements

[36:26]

But anyway. But basically, the more people's eyes dart around,

the more time they're not able to see what's coming. Yes. Is what it really comes down to.

And you can play with that in so many different ways.

And like I said, I think, A, Crystal's idea of just making eyes bounce around

the room and making it so that their perception is weakened.

Yeah. As people say. Their ability to perceive the scare is heavily weakened. That's good.

But also, just noting that if someone's eyes do dart over and land on you,

[37:04]

Exploiting Eye Reset Time

[37:00]

that they're going to need an extra beat before they process any motion you do.

Whether you want to exploit that or want to make sure they see your motion. Yeah. Be aware.

Yeah. Well, you know, that's one of the things that we've learned about casinos.

How they make sure that you aren't realizing how much time is passing.

Yeah. Because there are no clocks.

Yeah. And the floor is really bright pattern. Yes, ugly.

[37:28]

I said what I said, goddammit. But it's a really hard pattern for your eyes

to look at. So you don't want to look down. So you're always trying to look at the machine.

And the machines, of course, all of them are super bright, super distracting.

The eyes darting from machine to machine, light bulb to light bulb, thing to thing.

It's very hard to focus on any one thing. And yeah, you're going to lose time

because, like I said, 100 milliseconds. Every time your eyes dart.

Yeah. So blinking lights in a row would be something you could use.

Yeah. Not flashing lights, but like a light progression.

Yeah. You can do a lot with this, I think.

Yeah. All right. And let's see. We got one more illusion to talk about.

And this one's more of just something to be cognizant of as you're designing

your haunts and your characters, I think. Because this was something that we got wrong.

And I'm wanting to correct here, but it's known as the flash lag illusion,

but I'm calling it the visual order of operations because I think that's more useful to us.

When your brain is processing visual information, it does not take everything in at once. We knew that.

We all knew that. We're all familiar with that. However, the hierarchy is not what I thought.

The most important thing, the very first thing the brain receives is color.

[38:50]

Which is weird to me because I had always thought it was the next thing which

is motion so after processing color after processing motion then it makes an

attempt to figure out shape and.

[39:04]

I had always thought motion was it. Motion was the important thing.

I really, really thought that. And I was very surprised to learn that color

is more important for our brains.

Yeah. So if you have a light on something with a strong color,

surrounded by, you know, dimmer things, then your eye is going to go to that

color and that light, right? Yeah.

That's why light is so effective, because it highlights the color. Yeah.

Well, and you're also going to notice changes in color much more quickly than

you're going to notice motion, or somewhat more quickly than you're going to notice motion.

[39:42]

Which is interesting because that means if you want something to be,

I mean, okay, if you want to hide something, obviously the standard rules of

camouflage we all understand apply here, right? Yeah.

Basically, you paint it the same color as everything else.

[39:59]

You don't have it move much. Keep in the shadow. You're done,

right? Right. But what if you want people to see it?

Well, historically, like the philosophy has been just give it a lot of motion.

Have it jump up and yell at people. Have it, you know, slam,

come out and get in people's face and whatever. You know, motion's important.

[40:19]

But we overlook the power of color in that.

[40:23]

Power of Color vs. Motion

[40:23]

Color gets noticed before motion. So if the thing moving is also very different

color from whatever it's surrounding,

it's going to get picked up so much faster

and so much strongly so this is

why whenever we put someone in a

black costume underneath a black

doll dress yeah in a white room yeah

the walls are white yeah so that piece

stands out yes so whenever it

moves unpredictably it adds to it

it because the color is different from the rest of the room and here's

the thing the reason one of the reasons that scare worked as well as

it did was because even though the two dresses from the from

the actor and the um were actually fairly different

they had the same shape ish yeah but since shape isn't so quickly processed

nobody noticed the difference in shape right it's more about the feel and the

color exactly and emotion yeah color is more important than shape when when

trying to hide something.

So what does that do for like flame lights and motion lights.

[41:33]

Colorful motion lights?

Yeah, that's once again, you're going to get a lot of attention.

People are going to notice those and look at those very quickly.

Yeah. They're going to get a lot of mental focus, even if, you know,

that's not what you want them to focus on.

So if you do want them to focus on that area and not on the other area and still

have a fairly bright haunt,

you could put the motion light on what you want them to be directed to and And

the hide, the hidden in the regular light that doesn't move. Yeah.

[42:02]

Because the brain wouldn't process it and

you can also change the colors and so forth so

that that light stands out from a color standpoint because we

get the thing is like we get used to color like if

you're in a red room we'll say yeah you're not

going to notice red chairs you're not going to notice red tables and but if

i come in and i put in a bright blue table well that's going to be very noticeable

yeah immediately and your eye is going to be drawn to that and so yeah it's

It's about using what's in the surroundings and making the color stand out from that, I think.

Both in terms of getting it noticed or, if you want to hide it, hiding it. Yeah.

And this may be something you could do a little bit of color theory research

on and learn how opposite colors on the color wheel work. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Learning a little bit of the color wheel is something I think

haunters, especially those who are building haunts, should do.

Because learning the value of complementary and accent colors and so forth is

absolutely important for designing a haunt.

[43:10]

Because it basically teaches you how, if you want a color to really stand out, what color it has to be.

Because my red and blue was actually a terrible example.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Purple and yellow. Yeah.

Orange and green. Green and red. Yeah. Yeah, green, well, some,

well, yeah, it depends on the green, but it goes into orange, too.

Well, yeah, it has to be... Opposite side of the color wheel.

Opposite side of the color wheel and the same intensity.

Yeah. Because intensity matters when trying to balance the colors so that they give the most pop.

And how, if you want to make something that looks natural and normal,

use tertiary colors using basically a Y pattern on the color wheel. Yeah. Yeah.

Like that's how you would use the red and the blue, for example,

is you would use them in the same intensity, same style.

It would blend together and actually, especially if you used it with the yellow

and whatnot, it would actually come together well, theoretically,

and make a room that you could use, like as a human.

[44:08]

But that's kind of not what we're going for, which is why complementary colors

are so cool. because it's the extreme of these contrasting colors that are literally

opposite the color wheel from one another.

One is the base, the other is the accent. Yeah. And the accent color is really going to show.

It is. And that's one of the things that you learn when taking art classes is

that if you're painting something that is blue, you paint your background orange first.

Yeah. Yeah. So that if any time that the background shows through a little bit,

that blue is really going to pop. Yeah.

[44:47]

Well, honestly, but these three things, I think, really could be very useful

stuff and could change the way people think about scares.

But here's the thing and kind of just a quick thing to wrap it up.

We've been obviously using optical illusions in this industry forever.

Ever yeah um i i

was literally as i was wrapping this up when i was

writing the notes i was like what are some of the optical illusions and i just the list

got too long um because it's vertigo tunnels

the infinity mirrors are an optical illusion the

various 3d effects especially any that use the glasses or um painted floors

to look like the floor is uneven or the floor is somehow altered yeah uh pepper's

ghost is fucking classic for this because they all all these do is trick the

way the eye works because once again eyes are stupid.

[45:39]

Fooling the Human Eye

[45:40]

Eyes are incredibly dumb. And the result of that is, as human beings with these

limitations, we can be fooled.

And it's kind of weird for me because I don't know why, but vertigo tunnels

did not work on me at all until I got LASIK.

I have no idea why. No one's been able to explain it. I used to go to,

when I was hanging out at Myrtle Beach on vacation, I would sometimes spend

time at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and just hang out in the Vertigo

Tunnel and mess with people.

[46:13]

Until the security goes, get out of here. Yeah.

Because I could just go up and down that all day long and it not bother me.

Then all of a sudden I got LASIK and my color acumen went way up.

And for some reason, Vertigo Tunnel started at least working.

Still don't get the full effect.

Yeah. For me, it depends on the light.

And it really does depend on the tunnel itself too. but yeah

for some reason vertical tunnels used to have no effect on me i

do not know why um but now

they uh now they have at least a moderate effect um but yeah we've been using

optical illusions forever but these are ways of taking advantage of optical

illusions in the middle of a scare rather than in sort of using the way the

brain processes this information information,

[47:03]

Leveraging Optical Illusions

[47:00]

rather than just trying to trick the eye, so to speak.

Sort of taking it to that next level, is what I think.

I was thinking this was really interesting stuff, and I hope that maybe some

of it was useful to at least think about or do further research on.

Because like I said, I've listened to a podcast and read a few articles.

I do not consider that research.

[47:20]

I'm merely passing along this information. I did enough research to confirm

that all these effects are actual things based in science. Yes.

Yes. Is what I did. I do know that much. I don't know if my understanding of them is 100% correct.

If it's not, please let me know. We will do corrections next episode or whenever we find out.

But honestly, I just think the idea of, especially the three-second rule,

using that processing, that's such an interesting trick for timing how you do

scares and how you think about scares. Honestly, I think it could be really, really handy.

Well, that all we have for right now? Yeah. All right. On that note,

everyone, thank you very much for joining us for the past 50 minutes or so.

Hope this was educational. Hope you learned something.

Please do check out the original History of the Universe episode.

It will be linked in the show notes.

I encourage you to check it out. Not just that episode, but all of their stuff,

especially if you're interested in quantum physics, cosmology.

And they also have a whole, basically, I guess like a gaggle of different podcasts.

They do one about the history of the Earth where they talk about the formation of the planet.

And they are a brand new one that's still in the starting up phase talking about

the history of mankind talking about the evolution of humans so please check

those out and the other things they do,

until next time though this has been Haunt Weekly episode number,

434 talking about mind tricks.

[48:44]

You can find more Haunt Weekly at hauntweekly.com Haunt Weekly on Twitter,

Haunt Weekly on Facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly wherever you get

your podcasts from until next time i'm jonathan i'm crystal and we will see

you all next week probably talking about positive reviews but who knows and

maybe something else we will see you all then.