ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Multistable perception

Multistable perception is the idea that sometimes we can look at something, like a picture or a pattern, and see different things. It's like looking at a picture of a duck and seeing a rabbit instead, or looking at a spinning wheel and seeing it sometimes turn one way and sometimes turn the other way.

It's kind of like seeing an optical illusion - something that makes your brain see things differently than they really are. And just like with optical illusions, sometimes different people will see different things when they look at the same picture or pattern.

Scientists are really interested in multistable perception because it helps them understand how the brain works. When we see something, our eyes send signals to our brain, and our brain tries to understand what we're looking at. Multistable perception tells us that our brain isn't just a camera that takes pictures and sends them to our mind - it's much more complicated than that!

So basically, multistable perception is when our brain sees one thing, then another, and can't really decide which one is right. It's a really cool and mysterious thing, and scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how and why it happens.