Reality’s Little Red Flags (Part 2)
The world looks real—until you notice the seams.
In last week’s newsletter, we looked at little moments in daily life that don’t quite add up.
Misread texts. Mood swings. Misunderstood reactions.
Each one a clue that you’re not experiencing the world as it is—
you’re experiencing a projection shaped by your internal VR headset.
But what if we go deeper?
What if it’s not just your thoughts and feelings that are shaped by the headset…
but the world itself?
What you see, hear, touch—what you think is physically out there.
Let’s look at a few more red flags. This time, in your senses.
You Weren’t Looking—but You Still Saw
You’ve been driving for ten minutes.
You arrive at your destination and realize you don’t remember the last five turns.
But you didn’t crash. You stayed in your lane. You stopped at the lights.
What happened?
You weren’t “seeing” the road. You were running on autopilot—guided by an internal model your brain had built.
The headset took over.
Red Flag:
You don’t always need to be conscious to “see” the world.
Your mind fills in the blanks. And you don’t notice… until you do.
Color Is a Lie (But a Really Beautiful One)
You pick out a shirt that looks black at home.
You get to work and suddenly… it’s navy.
You check your walls in the morning—they’re white. At sunset? They’re golden.
The shirt didn’t change. The wall didn’t change.
But the light did—and so did your brain’s rendering.
Red Flag:
Color isn’t a fixed property of objects. It’s a creation of your headset.
You’re not seeing “black.” You’re seeing how your mind interprets certain frequencies of light.
“What Did You Just Say?”
You hear someone say something that sounds completely wild—so wild that you immediately ask them to repeat it.
They do. This time it makes perfect sense.
Turns out, your brain just filled in a few words... incorrectly.
Red Flag:
You weren’t hearing actual sound—you were hearing a predicted version of it.
The brain is so good at guessing that we don’t notice when it gets it wrong—until something snaps us out of it.
You Can’t Unsee It
Someone shows you an image—the kind that looks like either a duck or a rabbit.
At first, you only see the duck. Then they point out the rabbit.
Suddenly, you see both. You can’t not see both anymore.
The image didn’t change. But now your brain renders it differently.
Red Flag:
Perception isn’t passive.
Once new information is introduced, the headset updates the projection.
Reality shifts not because of the object—but because of the observer.
They Were Right There the Whole Time
You search the table for your keys. Nothing.
You check again. Still nothing.
Then someone else walks in and casually points: “They’re right there.”
And there they are—sitting in plain sight.
Red Flag:
You weren’t seeing what was “there.”
You were seeing what your headset was rendering based on what you believed, expected, or were focused on.
The keys didn’t suddenly appear—you just finally rendered them.
So What Are We Really Seeing?
When we realize that even our senses are filtered, constructed, and filled in by the system, something powerful happens:
We stop assuming the world is “out there,” fixed and waiting for us to observe it.
And we start to get curious about what’s really going on in here.
We stop trusting appearances quite so absolutely.
And we open up to the deeper truth behind the projection.
You’re not just walking around interpreting the world.
You’re walking around generating it.
From the inside out.
Reflection
What’s one moment recently where your perception didn’t quite line up with reality?
What if that wasn’t a glitch... but a glimpse of how the system actually works?