I’ve been a fan of optical illusions ever since I discovered them in the library as a kid. But, of course, there is only so much you can do with paper magazines and books to fool your eyes.

This video uses inverted colors to tick your retinas into imagining colors that really aren’t there. And the best part is, you don’t even have to flip a page to do it.

I can’t quite explain exactly how this trick works, but I can guess it has something to do with the short-term memory in our brains and the color sensitivity in our retinas. When staring at a certain spectrum of color for a long time then switching to black and white, the viewer’s brain remembers the colors.

So as long as you keep staring at the black dot, your brain will assume that color (even though it may not be as prominent) is sill present around it. Only after you move your eyes do you notice that the second picture actually lacks color.

I wonder if our eyes would still be fooled if the first colored picture simply faded into the black and white one instead of switching suddenly.