If I wasn't so obsessed with Estonia ...

[blamebrampton]

... I would be completely obsessed with Iceland. This video calls me to jump on a plane and then spend several days investigating volcanic rock and dressing children like orphans. But the song is beautiful, Sigur Ros: Glósóli, one of those haunting tunes that stays with you. Back to the writing ...

ETA A friend just sent me this link which apparently is a simple test to see if you are dominantly right or left brained. I am horrified to learn that I am mung-bean loving right brainer! It's a treacherous example of nature overcoming nurture after I've spent years learning how to score perfect dictator results on MB tests! 

Comments

[gracilejenn.livejournal.com]

Okay, I immediately saw her spinning clockwise. So I looked, and it appears I am a right brainer also. Then she started switching back and forth, and I became woozy. (It doesn't take much!) So I called my sister over, *another right brainer* and explained to her what was happening, she called me a witch, and went back to her desk.

A moment later, (I'm apparently slow on the uptake this morning) I said, "Did you just call me a witch?"
"Yeah."

I don't know why.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

HEE! You have the power to control not only your own mind's workings, but apparently those of your sister! Either that or she was keying into your rather lovely icon.

Well, if you're over here in mungbean land, too, it can't be all bad. I suppose I should try and remember how to draw ... maybe ceramics ...

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

I really want to go to Iceland too. Perhaps we should meet up there someday!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

That's a brilliant plan! What are you up to in 2009? (2008 is already full ...)

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Other than my husband graduating and possibly a cross-country move, nothing that I can foresee. :)

[arethinn]

What? I see clockwise. I guess it has to be the same illusion as where a flat black silhouette of a 3D object sometimes is interpreted as facing towards the viewer, and sometimes away, and in that case I can usually force myself to change it, but I can't do it in this case. The rotating is too strong.

This is a stupid test, therefore, because I know from experience I am left- and not right-brained.

What's wrong with mung beans? Mmm sprouts!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd have said I was left-brained, too, being right-handed and right-footed and a wiz at those pattern-recognition tests that were all the rage back in the experimental days of 70s education, not to mention all about the words and not so much about the images ...

I did find that you CAN reverse the direction (gracilejenn may still have superpowers, though). I did it by blinking at different rates and counting the blinks per 10 second block on a clock I set up next to the image. I suddenly caught a glimpse of it going the other way and, by concentrating, was able to watch it go smoothly around anticlockwise. Though it went back to clockwise after I looked away and back again.

However, this raises another question: does it mean that I'm not as right brained as it thought, or does it mean that by performing a left-brained experiment, I made my brain temporarily leftish?

Mung beans are fine in themselves, but in conjunction with my upbringing by crazed hippies inspire little PTSD moments, in much the same way as tie-dye.

[ekaterin.livejournal.com]

First time I looked, she was stubbornly turning anti-clockwise. Today I tried again, and she was turning clockwise. Then she changed direction suddenly, and I could not make her go clockwise again. Some more experiments, like closing my eyes, imagining her turning clockwise and opening made her turn clockwise again. Some more experiments, and the result is that, if I watch her legs, I can make her turn whatever way I want, but if I watch her face, she will be turning anti-clockwise. Makes me wonder what that means for my brain....

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Ooh! That's quite impressive! I can't get her to change while looking at any part of her, I have to do the blink test or something similar. Though I did notice that when I clicked on the link while typing up my explanation of the blink test to another commenter, she was going anti-clockwise that time, too. I think we need to find someone who knows about neuroscience ...

[leochi.livejournal.com]

This video is one of the best I've ever seen, thank you for putting it on your LJ (and for commenting on one of my drawings; I wouldn't have been here without your post :-))

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Well, thank you for being so talented! Glad you like it; I had heard the song but never seen the video until recently, and I loved it, too. Trying to find some more of theirs in better quality formats now ... Might be the excuse I need to go to Iceland!

[leochi.livejournal.com]

Lol, this must be one of the nicest replies to a post I've ever got :-)) Glad you appreciate my talent, I suppose it has to do with both brain halves and that's why I saw this revolving figure change every time I averted my eyes and looked again - I got all dizzy ;-))
Yay for Iceland - my favourite dancing teacher went there a few years ago and didn't come back. She said she fell in love with the country.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Heh! Hurrah for your adaptable brain! It's quite impressive, especially your lovely use of colours.

And at last! Someone I can share my once Icelandic joke with:

What do you do if you get lost in a forest in Iceland?

Stand up.

[leochi.livejournal.com]

Lol - Well, I had an obsession with Finland actually but Iceland is very interesting as well. But now a little none-Icelandic joke for you:
A young man was applying for a job as policeman. The interviewer asked: "How would you disperse a crowd?"
The answer was: "I'd pass my hat."

(And if you speak French, that's my favourite:
Qu'efqu'un canife?
Un petit fien.)