Just stared into a lemurs eyes for half a minute aparently (that felt like an hour) and it freaked me tf out. Since been staring into peoples eyes or animals eyes and its consistently weird and freaky no matter what. Also it feels like my conciousness is behind my eyes and maybe thats why they say eyes are the window to the soul.
Noone may ask what I took or how much
Animals often avoid eye contact, it’s considered rude. Humans are a very touchy-talky-looky species. So yeah, it’s freaky. I used to think I suffer from face-blindness (forgot the fancy name of it), then it occurred to me that I just straight up forget/avoid to look into people’s eyes so I never even see their faces. Now I sometimes try to make a conscious effort to look at people’s eyes - but how long is even appropriate?
Your story of the lemur reminds of staring into the eyes of a genet for probably about a century during a somewhat substance-enhanced camping trip. Can’t say I was freaked out, rather honoured by the animal deciding to hang out with me for a while?
A Genet? That’s crazy. I didn’t know they were still releasing new animals.
I had no clue this thing existed till I met it - I did think it was a lemur at first but then I looked it up. They probably arrived in the Iberian peninsula as pets so it’s not too surprising that they approach people.
Prosopagnosia (face blindness) is the disorder you are thinking of
I keep confusing it with pareidolia - seeing faces everywhere.
If you had both, would you see faces everywhere that you never recognize?
Yep and the ted chiang short story on that is brilliant.
Odd, i find eye beautiful and mesmerising, i can stare at my cat’s eye without feeling the freakiness you felt.
You’re freaking the cat out though
c/im14andthisisdeep
I don’t normally look people in the eyes, but animals? I have no problem with it. The animals do, most of the time. Dogs, though, are like people and like eye contact. And I like looking into their big puppy eyes 🥺
That whole “eyes are the window to the soul” thing only makes sense to me if you include the rest of the face, though; eyes alone don’t show expression. The eye brows and cheeks and mouth do.
And I like looking into their big puppy eyes
That is a bit of co-evolution between humans and dogs. While their nose is still their primary sense, their eyes have grown in importance to aid their communication and bonding with us.
Face eggs
What’ll really bake your noodle later on is that the eyes are not near the top of the head. Artists know this: if you look at someone, the eyes will be halfway between the chin and the top of the head.
I’ve wondered about this recently too. Eyes are only sensory organs. People can also do fine without them. So why are they so expressive?
Because they are our primary sense.
Humans are social animals and were group hunters. Being able to judge emotions and intentions of another human just by looking into their eyes (silent communication) was a massive evolutionary advantage for us.
Facial expressions are a powerful form of communication. Faces (especially eyes) are so important to communication in the human brain that we see faces in places (pareidolia).
There is also a theory that we evolved to have the whites of our eyes visible so others can see where you’re looking and react appropriately (especially in the case of danger).
Do you have any sources on that?
I’m not trying to call you out, I’m interested in reading more.
Sure. It’s called the Cooperative Eye Hypothesis.
https://www.livescience.com/4299-eyes-alluring.html
Some researchers have called it into question fairly recently: https://phys.org/news/2021-06-cooperative-eye-hypothesis.html
I learned most of this in psychology classes years ago. There is also a Wikipedia article on the topic. I’m not an expert at all, but I find this stuff fascinating.
