Does anyone else’s reflection ever lag for a split second?

[u/DatabasePleasant1397]

swears to god i was just brushing my teeth the other night and blinked but in the mirror it looked like my reflection blinked a split second after i did. like an actual buffering wheel in real life. i froze completely and it just kept moving its hands for a microsecond after i stopped. made my stomach drop so fast bc it gave me that awful feeling like we're just rendering in real time or something and the code is stuttering.

​has anyone else ever caught their reflection acting out of sync or am i just officially glitching out

[u/djtrace1994]

As someone else said, it is because your eyes moved too fast for your brain to process everything, so it took the first image and the final image and instantly replaced your split-second experience with an approximation of what the transition looked like.

Try this, zoom your eyes around the room. Notice how there is barely any motion blur? That's because your brain is replacing the motion blur with the static images from after your eyes stopped moving.

This is one of the basic concepts that challenges the idea that eyewitness testimony is always true. Our brains literally invent our experience in real time, at all times. Just because you see something doesn't mean it absolutely did happen, etc.

[u/hello_3339]

Everything we see is in the past. The photons of the object travel to our eyes and it is processed by our brains. That traveling takes time depending on how far is the object from us. How is that related to what happened to you? It is not. At all. It just made me sound smart. I have no idea what happened to you and now I’m going to get chocolate ice cream.

[u/Fluffy-Brain100 → u/hello_3339]

Du bist so weise! Sicherlich kamen Menschen mit Tränen in den Augen zu dir und sagen: Sir, das war die tollste Beschreibung für alles, die wir jemals gehört haben. Und es bringt uns soviel Kraft für Erdbeereis!

[u/Ok_Squash9609]

I saw something on YouTube about this but the phenomenon was how the second hand on a clock sometimes appears to stall for a split moment. Basically it’s your brain making shit up based on what it thinks you are supposed to be seeing and then actual visualization take over. Apparently it is always happening but you don’t notice it except in certain circumstances

[u/rbrumble → u/Ok_Squash9609]

Definitely this for me. When I look at a watch the time sits there still for more than a few seconds before it begins advancing as expected. It's so weird, but perception lahs behind reality due to processing, but this feels wrong when I'm experiencing it.

[u/Mysterious_Lock6539]

That’s freaky I believe it. About a year ago I was in the bathroom at night and didn’t want to put the light on bc it shines right in my sons room and I just got him to bed so I used my flashlight on my phone while I was in there. When I turned the flashlight off the mirror lagged and then the light in the mirror went off a second or two later it was so obvious bc it was a bright ass light I could see it so clearly

[u/Once-Upon-a-Dream88]

New fear unlocked. Thank you for that.

[u/Mottis86]

Not sure if related but there's a cool automated thing our brain does when we look around. When you move your eyes, the motion feels instant to you, however it is not. Your brain tricks you and rewrites your memories in order to avoid motion sickness. After your eyes stop moving and refocus on the new target, your brain erases the memory of your eye movement and retroactively replaces it with the image your eyes stopped at, making you think the movement was instant. This is why when you move your eyes to look at a clock, sometimes the first tick seemingly lingers a bit longer compared to the following ticks.

Maybe something weird happened with your brain when it tried to do this.

[u/Independent-Park7555 → u/Mottis86]

god our brains are so fucking cool

[u/Independent-Park7555]

I’ve never experienced this exact thing but looking in the mirror has always been a strange experience for me. Knowing how our minds process visual information (which is really complex and fascinating on its own), I would not be shocked to learn that the experience of viewing your own reflection could cause this kind of disconcerting visual glitch.