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Goggles let you see the world upside down or reversed

Goggles let you see the world upside down or reversed
Reversing Goggles allow you to see the world upside-down or reversed left-to-right
Reversing Goggles allow you to see the world upside-down or reversed left-to-right
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Reversing Goggles allow you to see the world upside-down or reversed left-to-right
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Reversing Goggles allow you to see the world upside-down or reversed left-to-right

Ever wondered what it would be like to see the world upside-down? And no, just turning your head upside-down doesn't work. Well, anyhow, these goggles allow you to do just that. If seeing the ground above and the sky below is just a little too out-there for you, though, they can also be adjusted to let you see everything right-side-up, but reversed.

The Reversing Goggles consist of a ventilated plastic housing with an elastic head band, and two plexiglass prisms - one for each eye. In their regular configuration, these prisms will cause images viewed through them to appear upside-down. Rotating them 90 degrees, however, will instead reverse everything from left to right (and vice-versa).

There's no way of getting them to show you the world upside-down and reversed, which is, incidentally, the way that images are projected onto our retinas - our brains flip them over and turn them around.

While no practical use for the goggles comes to mind, the company selling them suggests that fun could be had trying to do things like shaking hands, writing, pouring water or walking around while wearing them. For God's sake, though, don't try driving with them.

Actually, according to experiments performed as long ago as 1896, if you wear such goggles for long enough, your brain will adapt and everything will appear right-side-up again.

Some assembly (including gluing) of the Reversing Goggles is required, which is perhaps a little questionable given their GBP 55 (US$86.90) price tag. If you only care about being able to see things upside-down, however, PsychKits offers a pair of fully-assembled Inversion Goggles for $25.

Source: Grand Illusions via Technabob

7 comments
7 comments
JoeB
WOW! Another answer to a question nobody asked!!
Joel Detrow
You know what\'s funny about these? According to science, if you wear them long enough, your brain will automatically decide to flip your vision back right-side up again. Then if you take the glasses off, stuff will be upside down again until your brain puts things back to normal.
janbrandt
This has been done decades ago by the Moody Bible institute. The guy in the experiment wore these glasses for weeks and was eventually able to do everything he did prior to the experiment including riding a motorcycle and flying a plane. There is a video available showing this evidence. Sorry if I doubled up but my previous post has disappeared!
worf2
read this: the innsbrucker brillenversuche in the 1930ies told us that our brain - not the eyes - is responsible for imaging. by reversing the view with this goggles and wearing them for some days the probands reversed view became normal. after removing the goggles the view stayed reverse for a short time as well. http://www.awz.uni-wuerzburg.de/archiv/film_foto_tonarchiv/filmdokumente/th_erismann_ikohler/
Ed
Yawn...already been done, and i'll bet the goggles didn't cost an obscene 86 bucks!
Richie Suraci
Might be easier and cheaper just to do a head stand.
vasyastyi
This device with acryl prisms - very bed quality for long wearing!
The best quality - optical glass prism like used for invertoscope or pseudoscope