What does it mean when people see faces of Jesus or the Mother Mary in random stuff?
There is no intrinsic “meaning” to these visions. They are caused by a natural and necessary tendency to recognize faces. It is a genetic trait, passed on to all surviving generations that is part of survival and hence, evolution. It usually is NOT dangerous and usually does not indicate mental derangement. It has a name too! Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”. If you ever notice certain numbers that seem to show up repeatedly during the day, or if you buy a new car and suddenly notice many of the same model car… THAT is Apophenia. Pareidolia is a type of Apophenia involving the finding of images or sounds in random stimuli. People who see faces in clouds, smoke, wood grain or other random stuff, are experiencing Pareidolia. Usually, this is a benign side-effe
