The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

As a child, there were times that I could look at a picture and it would seem to move. Mouths would move, eyes would blink, people seemed to breathe. I remember one incident very well. I was nearly 11 and I was lying on the couch in my living room. I was looking at a picture of me, my mother and my father. It seemed the longer I looked at it, the more animated our faces became. It scared me and I immediately told my father. He told me my eyes were playing tricks on me. I never really accepted that explanation and I've always wondered about it. I've heard several stories of pictures being animated in haunted houses. Who hasn't??

I would like to know your view on the matter and if you've experienced the same?

The only experience I've ever had with it was when I was around 10 and we lived in a haunted house. There was a picture of owls on the wall and the heads would occasionally follow you, at first we thought it was just the impression that the eyes were looking at you nomatter where you were but eventually we realized that the heads would change position slightly.

a friend of mines mothers picture is actually scary the eyes do follow you and she died in child birth in 1968. Everyone that crosses that pic seems to say the same thing.

I doubt that pictures actually move. It would be quite simple for a person to "see" such a thing, though, because a fair portion of what you see is actually memories and preconceptions be applied to what is actually there. It's the same principle as an optical illusion. You think it moved, therefore you see it move.

I think it is the picture it self the way it was taken, for exemple the Mona Lisa, when you look at it no matter where you stand she will always look at you.

It is a trick of illusion, Leonrd Davinci knew how I am sure today photographers know how to do it, willingly or not.

It is a simply illusion

That same thing happened to me once when I was a little girl. Now I am not sure if it was from staring at it too long or what but it freaked me out. It wasn't in the same degree that it was for you rather it was just a picture of my deceased grandmother and I thought she moved.

When I was a kid, my grandma used to have a famous picture of Jesus on her wall upstairs on the landing. I was always frightened of that picture as a child, as it seemed to move too. My mum grew up with that picture in the house, in the same place, & she had similiar experiences with it all through out her time there. The picture has thankfully been taken down as shes not religious anymore lol

I agree with DuCroix .
It could also be that your eyes were tired , which led to the situation he/she described . Try relaxing your eyes and looking at the floor . You'll see it move , like it's liquid . [At least , I do] .
Say you do have psychic abilities , and photons could carry information about what they bounce off of . If you were sensitive enough to notice that , I'd be surprised if you didn't spend your days in the corner , yelling at the voices ;)
All around , I believe ...
It was just your mind playing tricks on you :)

well i do see animated things at times but not always in pictures it just happened from time to time.....i guess it was my imagination...idk

I think if you stare at anything for long enough it can appear to move. Try looking for a while at a perfectly ordinary statue and see what I mean. It's purely your mind playing tricks on you and convincing your eyes that a thing should be moving when it isn't.

That's not to say I don't believe in haunted art; but that's a topic for another thread :-)

my bf is always explaining to me DECROIX's explanation of things like this as i have seen pictures become animated ...i think there is just a handful of us who really see something happening in these pics we cant explain and people think we are crazy

this could be useful if click below

Read This

Pictures are 1 demensional and therefore there would be no way for the actual movement. I believe this to be an illusion. Your mind can make things appear to happen even if they are not happening

An illisuion maybe, drug induced maybe. Harry Potter like...definatly.

I could never figure out why that happens either. Sleep Deprivation, Dehydration, could be anything.

Technically pictures and paintings are 2 dimensional but if done correctly can give the illusion of being 3 dimensional. Some people can see this effect more easily than others. It is a well known fact that if the subject in a photo is looking directly into a camera when the picture is taken the eyes will seem to be looking at you from no matter what angle you look at it. An artist while painting a portrait can achieve the same effect. Another thing that can play into that is if you have vivid memories of the subject those may overlap your vision of the photo and seem to make it move. I have experienced a similar thing at funerals of people that I've been very close to where I would swear they looked at me and smiled, very unnerving too I might add.

I have not seen any that seem to follow you as you walk by but omg that would be scary for sure.. Most likely just how the pic was shot , who knows really.

There was a house near where my grandparents lived that supposedly had a painting in it that had eyes that moved. It was of a woman and it seemed like no matter where you stood, she was looking at you. I never got to experience it myself because the house burned down. However, my friend and I did go to the ruins of the house and we found something really strange in the foundation...tombstones. I'm not kidding. There were at least four broken off tombstones used in the foundation. You could even see the names and dates on them. The name was Bell and that was the name of the family that owned the house. Of course, when it burned t had been abandoned, but they did own it and live in it before it was abandoned. How freaky is that?

i agree with DuCroix on the subject of photographs appearing to move

older photographs are especially likely to give the illusion of movement, usually the eyes
the processing of images can make the shadows appear different from different angles causing the eyes to 'shift' in an optical illusion
i love photographs that do that :)
my friend's family had one of her great great grandparents that watched you as you moved around the room

well i once was staying at my friends house
because her mother died and that night i looked up at a picture of the family that was on the wall and there little 5year old boy in the piture eyes started glowing red it scared me.so yes i do belive this does happen.

What happens when we experience optical illusions is not entirely known. The answers we look for in order to explain the phenomena are found among the studies of optics and psychology. Optical illusions are caused by the eye itself, the brain's interpretation of the visual information, or in many cases, a combination of the two. Light reflecting off of an object enters the eye through the cornea in order to form the image that is projected onto the retina. After passing through the cornea and lens, the retinal image may be distorted. This distortion can be responsible for optical illusions. Reduction in the sharpness of the image or the distortion caused by the shape of the retina can both be contributing factors depending on the illusion. Other factors that can be responsible for optical illusions involve the ways in which the brain interprets visual images. These factors can include depth perception, relative size perception, or the misapplication of past experiences in visual interpretation. Individual properties that can influence these factors involve the viewer's age, personal experience, and cultural /environmental factors.

Reference:

Optical Illusions Are Everywhere

There are plenty of pics taken that when you view them from any angle it appears as if the eyes are moving with you...this is not a phenomenon but a common occurence.

I am not disputing the fact that there is a possibility of a picture becoming animated but so many times our minds like to play tricks on us and make us think we are seeing something in which we truly are not.

When you were looking at the picture of you and your family and seeing that movement, was everyone saying what they were saying at the time of the picture? Because then I would think it was an over active imagination, given that you were 11. Has this happened anymore? I don't recall seeing movement in pictures, but I have a picture of my great grandmother holding me when I was a new born, just before she past away and I can feel her near. Not like she's cradling me, but just watching over me. I know that's not what you were talking about.... but it was related to a picture so I was reminded of it.

I beleive it is a trick of the eyes. The mind is capible of making you beleive that your going to die when your perfectly fine (Referance to panic attacks) so i'm more then sure it can make you beleive a picture has moved.
Also i beleive it could be dependant on your state of mind, "willing" it to happen (no, i'm not taking magic for christ sake) would raise your chances in beleiving that it did infact move.
Have you ever laid awake in the dark with a dim light and found that it seems to get darker? thats merely because your closing your eyes, but at the time, you dont exactly feel yourself doing it.

When you look at a picture or something for a certain period of time it will look as if it is changing positions or looking at you . That is more than likely your eyes playing tricks on you. I am not saying this did not happen but it is not likely the picture was actually moving.

I've heard of this scenario described by morticians with cadavers. The mind perceives something that unsettles them, and attempts to make the experience more acceptable. You believe the subject has moved because you've stared at it for so long, just like how morticians think the cadaver has just taken breath. Because they stared at it for a long period of time. It's applying the logic of a hidden picture. The brain Dissecting chaos.

Not saying that it still isn't unsettling.

If you're really tired or even just plain bored to tears, you're mind will play amazing tricks on you just to keep it occupied.

i cant wait for nanotechnology so animated pictures can become "the norm"

Molly: I believe some digital photo frames can display short videos which would be the same thing.

I swear to god! it always seems like photographs of Elvis presley move. Look next time you see someone with one hanging in there house. Elvis's eyes follow you. I'm dead serious. he scares me : /

when i was a kid my parents had a glass clown mask that hung over my door in such a way if i layed in my bed i was looking rite at the mask... late at night i would wake up but was afraid to look up because if i did the mask would glare down at me and its smile woulld change into a frown... it scared the crap out of me... and still to this day im afraid of clowns...

some pictures are haunted and have a ghost inside it.the laughing cavalier painting is very haunted by the cavalier.one of the staff at the wallace collection said that some of them come and say hello to him every morning.his pic projects a very positive presence.

It sounds like something like that would be ghost related. Perhaps a spirit inhabiting a picture using it has a body or sorts to move and live in.

I have mixed feelings about this one. If there is a spiritual connection to a picture who is to say it couldn't happen.
Most of them time...i think it is our minds playing tricks on us.

I always thought it was portraits that moved in haunted house, not pictures.

It agree with your father sorry, it sound to Harry Potterish.

yes i have experienced pictures eyes moving and other things that are paranormal. But i am a believer of paranormal activity.

I ve seen pictures of faces that however or wherever you look at them their eyes always seem to be looking at you. I do't think they actually move, I think it could be some kind of illusion.

In my grandmothers house hangs a picture in a room were no one gose in to..At one time it was used as my moms bedroom latter on it was my grandmas sewing room.This picture is of my grandfathers grandmother.Grandma hatch it was painted when she was a teenager and done in a way that it looks like i photograph this painting hung in her house and was a faviorite object(Most people beleve that a faviorite object is and will become haunted the person wont let go of it after death)She died with that painting haning abouve her bed and then it hung in my mothers room my other would cover it up lol cause she said grandma hatch was watching her..Grandma hatch was a mean woman and very strict she was mean to my grandfather as a child so no one liked her feard her really...My mom kept it coverd up till she moved out then my grandma turnd it to a sewing room about amonth of useing it grandma no longer could stay in it alone she mentiond someone was watching her she to coverd up the pic grandpa got angry for that was his mother..One day while working in there grandma screamed my mom ran up the stairs to see what it was i came to i was about 5.She said she saw nasty old woman hatch standing at the door with a switch in her hand taping it i looked at my mom she turnd me around and said go down stairs.Grandma never spoke of her again nor used that room.a few years latter i spent one and only one night there and saw her standing over my bed her face in mine I didnt know who she was never saw the painting it was all ways coverd up.I told my mom she took me in the room and took of the sheet i screamed thats her.Mom never let me up there again and as far as i know cause of grandpa it still hangs..

when i was young i always used to thing the faces in yearbooks would look at me. and the person in real life could see me. i dunno. i'm not sure about that. i know in disney land they have the haunted houses with those crazy pictures on the walls that would look at you no matter where you went.

i think if you stare at something long enough your mind will give you illutions that the picture is moving, it happens to me all the time, it's just your mind playing tricks on you

The illusion of which most speak (eyes following you as you move ifo a 2 dimensional image) occurs when the subject is looking directly into the camera lens.

Try it next time you're having a pic taken.

As far as photographs that appear to move... your eyes are constantly moving. Even when you concentrate on an image this movement is constant. Your eye movements will (if you stare long enough) give the illusion that what you're looking is in fact moving.

Stare at this image for a few moments, the movement (or floating of the central square occurs because of your involuntary eye movements.

,img src=http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_eyeJitter/PinnaSpillmann333.png>

I suck, can someone fix this?

Some surfaces with two dimensional images can appear to move, some printing, known as embrodery appears to hover over the surface, one picture in my friends house had a motion it seemed the couple would shift in their seats. I really noticed it while stoned, yet also when sober.. eventually we figured out it was warped from moister. it caught the light and played with shadows. I have used this to animate my apparitions painted on various home surfaces. Or on butcher paper.

Depends on the photo really and how it is shot and and angle and so on.. Might seem to be animated but it might just be the trick of the eye..

Like most people on here, I agree that it is our minds letting us believe what we want to believe. Mind over matter is a very strong thing.

My wife had an experience with that when she was a child but at the time she was running a fever so the family wrote it off as that

Perhaps it is a psychic perception that connects to memories implanted in the brain. We don't fully understand how the brain works or what abilities people may have pertainig to tuning into time and space. I don't think I have experienced that but I will not judge either way for whether it is real or an hallucination. I don't have enough information because I wasn't there.

when i was a kid there was this one picute in the hallway going the my bedroom that i swear to this day would moved(eyes and mouth). It was of an older lady. Black and white.Im not sure who it was maybe my foster moms grandmother or something, but either way i was so scare of the picture i hate walking to and from my bedroom.

what if a photo is haunted. in some cases people have look at old photos and swear they have move. its weird in a way. we all know about haunted houses but objects and photos can be haunted too....

I have not ever happened with photographs but if you think about painting they are painted to make them seem like the person is really alive and looking at you.

This thread reminded me of something and I had to try adn recollect;

Anyone remember the scene from Blade Runner? Where the detective is examining a photograph and for a moment it comes alive in his hands? The leaves / shadows play across the 3d reality of the image and you hear the sounds of children playing...?


"...As he picks up her discarded snapshot (of Tyrell's niece as a child with her mother), the shadows on the porch in the picture wave or move as if real for a moment or two, and the faint sounds of laughing children are heard. The picture of Rachael with her mother seems to briefly flicker to life."

from T. Dirk's review of the film / http://www.filmsite.org/blad2.html

One thing I have noticed is that I feel like I am being watched in a room with pictures of humans or posters and stuffs. It feels like the people in the pictures are watching me and hearing everything I am saying and who sees everything I do.
When I talk for myself in my room(Which I do quite often) I often turn to the pictures as if I am talking to them. I know it is weird but I am not mad or anything.