Poké-Pareidolia

Pareidolia is what happens when someone sees (or hears) something that is not actually there. Thus, "Poké-pareidolia" is seeing (or hearing) something related to Pokémon when it isn't there. Now, nine months ago, I wrote a post that detailed how I seem to have an "eye" for many things Pokémon, being able to instantly recognize things that are related to it. On the flip side, I may falsely perceive that I saw something Pokémon. This post essentially details the inverse of that.

Sometimes, I see yellow blobs that are as brightly colored as or resembling a body part of Pikachu, but on closer and more detailed inspection, it's actually not. In another instance, I saw red, white, and blue that are similar to and arranged like Red's outfit, but it is neither an outfit nor belongs to Red. And then there are various occasions where I see blue and yellow, the colors of the international Pokémon logo, juxtaposed in such a way that they almost invoke that logo. In all of these cases, I'm seeing something that isn't really there, and that's pareidolia. Since this is related to Pokémon, it becomes "Poké-pareidolia".

Pareidolia is actually important, as it is the consequence of our minds being able to instantly recognize and react to the things that are important. For example, faces become important as they are something that the human mind reacts to in feelings; this leads to the perception of shapes and lines that don't even make up real faces to actually be construed as faces. The same is what happened above, only it involves Pokémon things as specific cases, and in particular being related to my perception.

What this means is that this affirms the exact same thing that I discussed in the other post: that I am a dedicated fan, and that Pokémon is "hard-wired". In a sense, I consider Pokémon important, being able to recognize something belonging to it at a quick glance. However, this sometimes also backfires in cases of pareidolia, where the perceptions are false. My perception of Pokémon is thus as innate as, say, the perception of faces and the situations of pareidolia that occur from that.

The thing about pareidolia is that it highlights how acute the human perception is regarding certain things, insofar as it also leads to the false perception of them. For many people, including me, it would involve something as common as faces. For my case in particular, it involves Pokémon and related elements. In either case, it becomes an indicator that something is innately important and provokes reactions, even if it's just a perception that only falsely exists.

One year ago: The Pacing of Types