Optical illusions are something which we will always struggle to get our heads around and, much like Dr. VS Ramachandran once said, the human visual system is a "bag of tricks." While this may sound like a fairly simplistic way of defining what is an incredibly complex and confusing system that has been refined by evolution in order to help humans perceive the world and environment around them, it's hard to argue with Ramachandran's definition.

In order to prove his point, Ramachandran created a clever experiment that drilled home his theory. After training to be a doctor in India in the 1970s, Ramachandran said that “the lack of technology actually forces you to be ingenious. You have to rely on your clinical acumen. You have to use your Sherlock Holmes-like deductive abilities to figure things out.”

In light of this, the doctor was able to alleviate phantom limb pain for amputees by using nothing but a box and some mirrors. Ramachandran would trick the mind of the subjects into thinking their hand or foot was still there by using the mirror boxes, allowing them to 'itch' or 'stretch' their missing limb ad calm the nerve endings that didn't know that the limb was there.

The reason the experiment was successful is due to the fact that our vision doesn't actually always perceive what is actually there. Often, despite the fact that we may see something as clear as day, we might actually be viewing something entirely different to how someone else would. Take, for example, that infamous dress. Some people viewed it as black and blue, others said it was white and gold.

We are all susceptible to optical illusions and, thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter, another one has gone viral online and has the internet doing a double take.

Twitter user @Marisol took to the social media platform to issue a simple fashion statement in which she said that she had managed to match vertical stripes with horizontal ones (which, to be fair, is something worthy of praise). While the tweet was simply put out to praise her own sense of style, it ended up becoming so much more than that.

Plenty of people agreed with Erik.

Some even compared her to a character in The Incredibles.

While others thought she looked like an infamous SpongeBob villain.

Of course, others users decided to go for a trip down memory lane.

First, there was the dress mentioned above, but remember these sneakers?

And this long-armed woman?

I mean, I'm not going to lie, when I first saw the photo I was left pretty perplexed. At first, I was worried that this girl had a pair of matchsticks for legs, rather than that she was plainly making a fashion statement. Isn't the mind a wonderful, if not slightly scary, thing?

Optical illusions are something which we will always struggle to get our heads around and, much like Dr. VS Ramachandran once said, the human visual system is a "bag of tricks." While this may sound like a fairly simplistic way of defining what is an incredibly complex and confusing system that has been refined by evolution in order to help humans perceive the world and environment around them, it's hard to argue with Ramachandran's definition.

In order to prove his point, Ramachandran created a clever experiment that drilled home his theory. After training to be a doctor in India in the 1970s, Ramachandran said that “the lack of technology actually forces you to be ingenious. You have to rely on your clinical acumen. You have to use your Sherlock Holmes-like deductive abilities to figure things out.”

In light of this, the doctor was able to alleviate phantom limb pain for amputees by using nothing but a box and some mirrors. Ramachandran would trick the mind of the subjects into thinking their hand or foot was still there by using the mirror boxes, allowing them to 'itch' or 'stretch' their missing limb ad calm the nerve endings that didn't know that the limb was there.

The reason the experiment was successful is due to the fact that our vision doesn't actually always perceive what is actually there. Often, despite the fact that we may see something as clear as day, we might actually be viewing something entirely different to how someone else would. Take, for example, that infamous dress. Some people viewed it as black and blue, others said it was white and gold.

We are all susceptible to optical illusions and, thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter, another one has gone viral online and has the internet doing a double take.

Twitter user @Marisol took to the social media platform to issue a simple fashion statement in which she said that she had managed to match vertical stripes with horizontal ones (which, to be fair, is something worthy of praise). While the tweet was simply put out to praise her own sense of style, it ended up becoming so much more than that.

Plenty of people agreed with Erik.

Some even compared her to a character in The Incredibles.

While others thought she looked like an infamous SpongeBob villain.

Of course, others users decided to go for a trip down memory lane.

First, there was the dress mentioned above, but remember these sneakers?

And this long-armed woman?

I mean, I'm not going to lie, when I first saw the photo I was left pretty perplexed. At first, I was worried that this girl had a pair of matchsticks for legs, rather than that she was plainly making a fashion statement. Isn't the mind a wonderful, if not slightly scary, thing?