Tholonia - 540-E-Hidden_Images
The Existential Mechanics of Awareness
Duncan Stroud
Published: January 15, 2020
Updated: Updated: Jan 1, 2026
Welkin Wall Publishing
ISBN-10:
ISBN-13: 978-1-6780-2532-8
Copyright ©2020 Duncan Stroud CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
This book is an open sourced book. This means that anyone can
contribute changes or updates. Instructions and more information at https://tholonia.github.io/the-book (or contact the
author at duncan.stroud@gmail.com). This book and its on-line version
are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
license, with the additional proviso that the right to publish it on
paper for sale or other for-profit use is reserved to Duncan Stroud and
authorized agents thereof. A reference copy of this license may be found
at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. The
above terms include the following: Attribution - you must give
appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if
changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in
any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Noncommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
Share Alike - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you
must distribute your contributions under the same license as the
original. No additional restrictions - you may not apply legal terms or
technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything
the license permits. Notices - You do not have to comply with the
license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your
use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation. No warranties
are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary
for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity,
privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
The images above demonstrate spectrograms of audio files that contain hidden images. Musicians and sound artists embed visual patterns into their music by carefully crafting the frequency content so that when the audio is analyzed with spectrogram software (which displays frequency over time), recognizable images appear. This creates a form of steganography where information of one type (visual) is encoded within another (auditory).
Another excellent example of hidden images is the Magic Eye stereogram, which was popular in the 1990s. These are stereoscopic images that combine two slightly offset perspectives into a single pattern. By diverging your eyes (looking “through” the image rather than at it) or crossing them slightly, your brain merges the two embedded perspectives, revealing a three-dimensional image. In the example below, there is a butterfly hidden within the pattern.
This technique can also be used to instantly detect the slightest difference between seemingly identical images. When you overlap two images using the crossed-eye technique, any differences will appear to shimmer or stand out. You can try this yourself at https://thequizimpossible.com/spot-the-difference.
In Carlos Castaneda’s 1968 Master’s thesis in Anthropology, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge1 (considered a work of fiction by many scholars), the Yaqui shaman Don Juan explains to Carlos that the way to perceive hidden truths is to look “in-between” the illusions of physical reality, employing a technique similar to the stereoscopic viewing described above. While this may sound metaphysical, the perceptual phenomenon itself is grounded in how our binocular vision system processes overlapping images. Imagine going back in time to the 1960s, before computers could create such images, and claiming you could see a butterfly hidden in what appeared to be random dots.
Music spectrogram image credits (left to right, top to bottom):
[Equation] by Aphex Twin. Image via Jarmo Niinisalo
Windowlicker by Aphex Twin. Image via Jarmo Niinisalo
Continuum by Disasterpeace (FEZ Soundtrack). Image via Black Coffee Spirit
My Violent Heart by Nine Inch Nails. Image via the Nine Inch Nails wiki
Beyond by Disasterpeace (FEZ Soundtrack). Image via Black Coffee Spirit
Transitions by DJ Sonix. Photograph via guru3d forums
Compass by Disasterpeace (FEZ Soundtrack). Image via Black Coffee Spirit
Stripes by sippenaken. Image via sippenaken on YouTube
Flow by Disasterpeace (FEZ Soundtrack). Image via Black Coffee Spirit
Look by Venetian Snares. Image via Jarmo Niinisalo
Complete collection and additional examples at https://twistedsifter.com/2013/01/hidden-images-embedded-into-songs-spectrographs/
Magic Eye image credit: 9GAG, http://9gag.com
Castaneda, Carlos. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. University of California Press, 1968.↩︎