Optical illusion: Stare at this picture for a minute to see it disappear

It is no secret that the Internet loves optical illusions. The latest one to hit the internet is no ‘blue-black dress’ or ‘spot the panda in a sea of snowmen’ but is sure to calm your senses.

A Redittor, who goes by the screen name NightBreeze13, shared a picture of a medley of pastel colours accompanied by the caption, “This picture will fade away if you stare at it (may take a minute)”.

The picture has been interacted with 48.6k times and has attracted responses ranging from people falling asleep to their phones running out of power. It also invited a lot of sarcasm and jest. A user commented saying, “If you focus really hard you will see a xbox card, or a xbox remote,” while another said, “Optical illusions always make my eyes water. Now i look like i’m crying at my desk because of some disappearing smudges.”

All you have to do is focus at the centre of the picture and stare at it for about a minute. Eventually, the colours around your point of focus should fade to white.

Do you see the colours fade? (NightBreeze13/Reddit)

Trouble focusing on the image? A Redittor suggests keeping the mouse pointer in the centre of the picture. “It makes everything fade extremely fast for me.”

According to the Illusions Index, this phenomenon is called the Troxler effect, an optical illusion affecting visual perception. When one fixates on a particular point for even a short period of time, an unchanging stimulus away from the fixation point will fade away and disappear.