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This week Ben and Ian discuss the phenomenon known as Matrixing.
Matrixing or pareidolia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. Matrixing frequently occures in the paranormal field.
Perceiving Phoney Patterns: Apophenia
Matrixing or Pareidolia at Minnesota Ghosts
Matrixing Types
Video / Imaging Matrixing
Seeing non-existent images or patterns in video recordings or photographs, Usually from noise or artifacts.
Audio Matrixing
Hearing non-existent noises, or voices from an audio source, such as tape recordings radio players, or phones. EVP and Backmasking are common examples.
Text Matrixing
Seeing non-existent patterns or words in text, such as books, passages from bibles, or letters.
Number Matrixing
Seeing non-existent patterns in numbers. Gambling for example, people can see patterns in the occurrence of numbers in lotteries, roulette wheels, and even cards. Seeing profound patterns in stock markets and other statistics. Numerology is also a popular form of number matrixing.
Event Matrixing
Seeing non-existent patterns in events throughout a person’s life or through history, often times giving rise to political conspiracy theories or doomsday prophecies. Synchronicity or coincidence is also common.
Object Matrixing
Finding non-existent patterns or profound meanings in physical objects, such as religious manifestations, where people often find the faces of religious figures in pieces of toast, the grain of cut wood, in statues, walls, and event art. Divination is also common, where people attempt to foretell the future, present, or past by finding patterns in animal entrails, tossed sticks, or stones.
Mentioned on the Show
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
The Others (2001)
The Number 23 (2007)
Knowing (2009)
Grave Encounters (2011)