90. Faces in the Crowd

I think most people might appreciate the look-alikes that show up now and then, like when I picked this funny cherry tomato one summer.  For those who don’t get it, it’s the red thing on the right. Like me, some folks can hardly open their eyes without noticing faces and other forms in ordinary objects everywhere.  Crazy, huh?

Consider the cliff that attract tourists because it looks like a man’s profile, or the desert rock formation that resembles a giant mitten.  An entire mountain range was named Tetons because some French guys thought it looked like breasts. And we pause to ponder a gnarled tree trunk with scary eyes and snatching arms, or the root of a ginseng plant that’s shaped like a little human torso.

I've realized that, intentionally or not, we even like to manufacture things so they look like they have faces; I've been collecting them.

One summer when we were camping at the ocean, I found some little stones on the beach that had holes, markings, or contours that looked like faces looking up from the sand.  For the next day or two, instead of collecting shells or driftwood, I looked for more little stone faces. I don’t know what’s going on, but they’re everywhere! I was probably oblivious to a lot of natural scenery, so keen to find more little faces. I may have missed the flock of pelicans, but look at what I found… all these little pebble people!

Yeah, I realize this is getting silly. I am a silly man. But wait, I’m not the only one picking up on this. Look at these two grotesque naturally formed stones my daughter found on the shore of Olympia harbor. She called them her ET’s. 

Our ability to connect-the-dots and see patterns, psychologists say, is called Apophenia. That’s us grouping the stars into constellations, seeing castles in the clouds, or finding a melody in the lapping of waves. It’s also how some can find cause and effect in seemingly random events, like conspiracies, or seeing omens in the behavior of animals, or receiving guidance from the zodiac. By the way, before you get ready to dismiss my point, I'm not saying something like astrology isn't valid because it's a function of of our quirky minds!  Quite the opposite, it's our quirky minds that are able to see such amazing connections.

Too little apophenia, and you fail to understand that the dangerous sea waves come in not just once, but one after another. Too much, and your life is governed by an extreme interpretation of cause and effect, as with an obsessive belief that everything bad is happening is because you stepped on a sidewalk crack.

Pareidolia (no, not paranoia) is a special type of apophenia. It’s our fun ability to see the human figure and face in objects we see. Mostly, we can't help it—when we see some holes and bumps on something, the mind is compelled to interpret it as facial or body forms. The Old Man in the Moon is looking serenely back at us. Pansies seem to resemble some kind of cute animal.  

If objects don’t already have faces, we put them there. Things with faces are more friendly, relatable. The vitamin commercial features a bunch of bright-eyed talking vegetables. Someone simply had to carve faces on Mount Rushmore. What else would we do with head-shaped mountains? 

Sometimes deep meaning is given to the sightings. In the movie Castaway, lonely Tom Hanks, stranded on a little island, smudges his bloody hand print on a volleyball he found on the beach. He sees a face in the smudge and develops a meaningful conversational relationship with the ball, and he names it “Wilson.” In regions that are rich in Christian faith, miraculous likenesses of Holy Mary or her Son seem to show up in unexpected places, even hot off the grill! Psychologists have studied pareidolia a lot… I don’t know if it could be considered a disorder, but I think I have come down with a case of it.

Being able to recognize the face of a specific person is an especially useful skill that pareidolia provides. I wouldn’t want to go pawing through a crowd, asking every woman I encounter if she was my wife, Linda. And, a good way to get along in the world is knowing that I am looking at another actual human being’s face rather than, say, a cookie. And yet, didn’t we enjoy our cookies a little more when Mom made them have chocolate chip faces? And isn’t it special when your barista swirls your coffee froth into a smiley face? Why is this so satisfying?

I have an idea of why we are so enthused to see reflections of ourselves out there. Maybe we’re looking for validation of what we hope is our special status in the Universe.  We want to believe that Mother Nature must be playing along in the game. Is she adorning inanimate things with faces and body shapes just to amaze and amuse us?  Even on a crowded planet, our egos are lonely for more faces to look at.

The recent photos of Mars show a mountainous feature that—hold your breath— looks like a face. I suppose now it's confirmed: We're already up there, so Mars is ours. 

Anyway, here are some more examples of things that I and others have found that resemble strange little faces.  My favorite is the bleach bottle with its Easter Island-style expression!