Hunter gatherers

Once upon a time when the children were young, when we were on long car journeys and when the sky was in a suitable condition, we used to play spotting things in the clouds. Ducks, whales, faces, whatever a cloud and a fancy brought to mind. I also remember seeing a painting of a sky in which the painter had worked a row of faces into the clouds, so it is not just us.

A bit more recently, when I used to travel on the Northern Line at night, after have taken on a few beers, I used to peer at the floor – a pale blue broken up with lots of specks of various colours – local councils used to use finishes of the same sort on the walls of public area in blocks of council flats – supposed to be very durable and to degrade well – and spot things there. Sometimes the things spotted were surprisingly vivid. There was a variation to be played with one’s shoes, which could also be persuaded to take on surprising shapes.

While now it is a game that I sometimes play with one of our bedroom curtains. The illustration gives something of it, but does not really capture the full flavour of the curtain in the half light, without one’s specs on, when all kinds of strange things are to be spotted.

From where I associated to the hunter gatherers of the Amazon rain forest (most recently noticed at reference 1), a rain forest full of all kinds of threats to life and limb. It really would be quite helpful if you were good at picking out such threats from the half light of the thick jungle on either side of the path that you were on. If you were able to spot the jaguar and take appropriate action before it did.

So perhaps what happens is that the vision bit of the brain is continually scanning the scene, sent across from the retina, for threats. But because the scene is confused and noisy, most of the time all the brain has to go on is vague clues. So what it does is take each clue it comes across, guesses at what it might be and then guesses at what it might see in the jungle if that was the iceberg of which the clue was the tip. The brain uses that extra information, dredged up from memory, to run a fuller check on the clue in the jungle scene. Much more efficient than checking everything. And maybe a jaguar does spring into view - or maybe the clue dissolves into nothing of significance.

Sometimes the brain will get it wrong, amplifying the clue into a full blow jaguar when there is nothing of the sort there at all. A powerful illusion which might persist for some seconds. Something of the sort happens quite often when I am out walking. One sees something, it turns into, say, a redwing, a nice clear redwing, and then it goes again and one sees the discarded cigarette packet for what it is. And sometimes, as when one is idly gazing at the clouds in the summer sky, the brain does not care all that much, does not care enough to check - and just fancies away.

Another angle, not to be neglected, is that one can project one's hopes and fears, or anything much else of importance, onto the world around one. So if I am very thirsty, I am going to see drink everywhere. If I am very afraid of spiders, I am going to see spiders everywhere. But perhaps this last case takes us back full circle, back to the jungle, because if I pick up the spiders early enough, I am going to be able to take evasive action before they get up close and personal, and really scary.

And so off to Horton Lane. Or is today a day for the Ewell Village anti-clockwise?

PS 1: there was also the business of the blackberries, a story from the same sort of place. See, for example, reference 2.

PS 2: and asking google about ‘faces in clouds’ now, he comes up with lots of stuff, if not the painting in question. So lots of people are at it.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/life-among-anacondas.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-suggestion.html.