This is just me, right? Perception of depth in lines of type

[David Steele]

Okay. Today's silly post:

When I read large groups of text, I start to perceive that there is a kind of three-dimensional quality to them. It's only really happened in the last year or so, but reading is becoming a kind of a Magic Eye experience.

Some lines seem really far away, and sometimes they stand out. I don't know why it's suddenly started happening. (I have a form of Dyslexia that mixes up verticals and hides middle letters in a cluster, so that might be at play here). It's not making life difficult, but it is distracting.

Sometimes when I'm tired, it even looks like every word is on its own unique layer and the whole page is a rather beautiful jumble of artificial depth. Occasionally I can become more interested in this illusion than what I'm reading.

Anybody else? This is a "me" thing, right?

 

[Karen Gray]

Okay. Today's silly post:

When I read large groups of text, I start to perceive that there is a kind of three-dimensional quality to them. It's only really happened in the last year or so, but reading is becoming a kind of a Magic Eye experience.

Some lines seem really far away, and sometimes they stand out. I don't know why it's suddenly started happening. (I have a form of Dyslexia that mixes up verticals and hides middle letters in a cluster, so that might be at play here). It's not making life difficult, but it is distracting.

Sometimes when I'm tired, it even looks like every word is on its own unique layer and the whole page is a rather beautiful jumble of artificial depth. Occasionally I can become more interested in this illusion than what I'm reading.

Anybody else? This is a "me" thing, right?

You're not alone there. Though I am more inclined to only see specific words that "pop out" more, and often they are back word or the sentence is in the wrong order...i.e. my brain registers the wrods in a random order rather than the order that they appear.

Gordon's mum has a very similar issue to the one you describe and she finds it's worse on a screen than it is on paper... dunno if that's the same for you or not?

EDIT: see I even do it while typing ^ words Karen... now wrods
Sometimes it's letters in a word, sometimes it's words in a sentence

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I'm not trying to freak anyone out (any more than they already are!), but I sometimes notice what are called Rivers or Rivers of White.

These are the accidental gaps caused by spatial alignment in typography, that appear to flow vertically through a printed page.

 

[Jason Byrne]

When I'm stuck at a point in the story and particularly bored, I'll turn the page of text into a magic eye, and see if I can find any recognizable shapes, looking "into" the page at different depths...

 

[Karen Gray]

I have seen the odd river, though I suspect the ones above have been made to look so. rivers of white space are poor justification, you see it less in more up to date text

 

[David Steele]

One of my earliest memories - looking over my dad's shoulder while he was hand-writing a letter and seeing the white lines running between his words. it was before I could read, but I remember being aware of the lines and thinking he must do it on purpose.

 

[David Steele]

I'll turn the page of text into a magic eye, and see if I can find any recognizable shapes, looking "into" the page at different depths...

Seriously? And here I was thinking this was just me.

 

[Jennifer Stone]

I know it's not related really, but I sometimes scan through the text looking for accidental words; where one word ends and another begins and they make a word.
IE. here always- he real ways.
Hoping I've not just confused you all completely

 

[Paul Whybrow]

As William S Burroughs said several times, originally in The Naked Lunch, 'Language is a virus from outer space.' Perhaps we should be careful of what we notice when reading text - it could be the aliens trying to communicate with us!

Performance artist Laurie Anderson took Burroughs' observation and turned it into a song.

 

[Marc Joan]

Okay. Today's silly post:

When I read large groups of text, I start to perceive that there is a kind of three-dimensional quality to them. It's only really happened in the last year or so, but reading is becoming a kind of a Magic Eye experience.

Some lines seem really far away, and sometimes they stand out. I don't know why it's suddenly started happening. (I have a form of Dyslexia that mixes up verticals and hides middle letters in a cluster, so that might be at play here). It's not making life difficult, but it is distracting.

Sometimes when I'm tired, it even looks like every word is on its own unique layer and the whole page is a rather beautiful jumble of artificial depth. Occasionally I can become more interested in this illusion than what I'm reading.

Anybody else? This is a "me" thing, right?

I don't get that, at least not since I stopped drinking those bottles of tequila with a lizard in, but it actually sounds rather nice.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

When I'm tired I can get a similar effect, @David Steele. Though it goes away as I get even more tired (hard to see the words through my eyelids...).

And I always see the rivers in text, and white space. Maybe that's why I like poetry and interpretive writing--white space is so important in both. And I very much appreciate when an author uses it in a novel, too. There is power in silence.

 

[David Steele]

I know it's not related really, but I sometimes scan through the text looking for accidental words; where one word ends and another begins and they make a word.
IE. here always- he real ways.
Hoping I've not just confused you all completely

...and this, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when a person has too much time on their hands.

 

[David Steele]

When I'm tired I can get a similar effect, @David Steele. Though it goes away as I get even more tired (hard to see the words through my eyelids...).

And I always see the rivers in text, and white space. Maybe that's why I like poetry and interpretive writing--white space is so important in both. And I very much appreciate when an author uses it in a novel, too. There is power in silence.

Interesting you should say this. The use of white space as a creative part of writing is something I've only just "discovered" for myself. Although I was aware of it in the works of Jeff Noon and Brian Aldiss (See 'Barefoot in the Head' as a rather stark example)

 

[David Steele]

As William S Burroughs said several times, originally in The Naked Lunch, 'Language is a virus from outer space.' Perhaps we should be careful of what we notice when reading text - it could be the aliens trying to communicate with us!

Performance artist Laurie Anderson took Burroughs' observation and turned it into a song.

I fell very much in love with Naked Lunch earlier this year. I absolutely loved the abstract style of it and I devoured every filthy word. By the end of it I was screaming for something with plot, though, so dropped on a Jack Reacher story by way of contrast.
I would love very much to write in this style. (My flashclub contribution, a la carte, was an attempt to capture a few small drops of this flavour)

Oh, and I've always been in love with Laurie Anderson.