Why we See Faces in the Dark

In the middle of the night, specifically around 1-3 a.m., you might wake up and see something resembling some sort of demon staring you in the face. But then you realize that it’s just the pile of laundry that you actually never ended up folding. This is actually called pareidolia. 

Image Source: Pinterest (artist unknown)

Pareidolia is when the brain perceives patterns or faces in random things. Pareidolia is driven by the fusiform face area (FFA), which is the part of the temporal lobe, and its main function is to recognize faces. When it’s really dark at night the pareidolia basically just “fills in the blanks” using memory. And while the pareidolia is “filling the blanks”, the amygdala (the fear processor) becomes more active at night, which causes you to feel terrified when you see that pile of clothes that resemble a face. It’s a reminder that sometimes, our minds create fear not from what’s real, but from what they imagine to protect us.