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Have you ever experienced an encounter with an image in the sky or thought that the lyrics to your favourite song related to your personal life? These are examples of having moments that are either unsettling, poetic, or just plain strange.
Such experiences are known as apophenia, expressions of our innate tendency to find patterns and attribute meaning to things that are random. The tendency we all have to engage in apophenia is not merely a harmless quirk. Instead, it shows how deeply our brains seek to make sense of everything around us through order, narrative, and explanation.
Apophenia can be evident in everyday life and can present itself in how we hear a voice over the hum of an air conditioner or perceive a coworker’s comment as having ulterior motives. Apophenia also informs our belief systems, inspires creativity, and can lead us to incorrect conclusions (Brugger, 2001).
We’re Wired to See Patterns Even When They’re Not There
Our ancestors lived in dangerous environments; spotting a predator’s shape in the bushes or noticing seasonal changes could be a matter of life or death. In those high-stakes situations, it was safer to mistakenly assume there was something there than to miss a real threat. That’s why our brains evolved to prefer false alarms over dangerous misses, what scientists call the “smoke detector principle” (Haselton & Buss, 2000).
The ancient wiring behind such a sensitive detection system still operates today. Our minds are so eager to make sense of things that we often “complete” patterns before we’ve checked the facts. A rustle in the dark makes us uneasy before we confirm it’s just the wind. A strange coincidence might spark a theory before we have any real evidence.
Rapid pattern recognition once helped us survive. Now it can lead to faulty conclusions, especially in the modern world, where threats are rarely life-and-death (Kahneman, 2011).
How Emotions Shape the Patterns We Think We See
Our emotions significantly influence our ability to perceive (or create) patterns. When we are anxious or uncertain about something, our brains go into overdrive trying to figure things out. At that point, apophenia comes into play.
For instance, if you’re waiting for an important message, you would interpret every vibration from your cellphone as a sign from the universe. When we feel vulnerable, we can also feel threatened by simple glances from strangers. Emotional states work like lenses that affect how we interpret neutral occurrences (Fineberg et al., 2014).
The drive to find meaning isn’t always a bad thing. It’s how we create stories, values, and relationships with one another. However, sometimes our desire for clarity can exceed the available evidence, and we end up creating stories that are not founded in reality. This is how conspiracy theories, superstitions, and rumors begin. These types of stories give us a sense of control over chaos; after they provide the emotional benefit we are looking for, it is difficult to disregard them (Lewandowsky et al., 2012).
How Apophenia Affects Our Relationships
Apophenia shapes the way we view others and the world by causing our brain to often draw conclusions about other people’s intentions before knowing for sure. An individual experiencing a delay in response via text may consider that they are being rejected. Or the recipient of an ambiguous comment may view it as critical and become offended.
Our brains use the same groups of nerve cells to form quick conclusions based on perceived threats as they did in long-ago society. However, in modern-day life, the quick conclusions result in being misinterpreted or leading to tension in our social interactions.
The good news? If we recognize this habit, we can slow down and ask ourselves: Am I seeing what’s really there or just filling in the blanks with my own assumptions? That kind of pause can create space for more empathy and better communication (Frith & Frith, 2006).
Apophenia Essential Reads
When Seeing Connections Becomes a Creative Superpower
Apophenia isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s a big part of what makes us creative. Artists, scientists, and inventors often make connections between ideas that seem unrelated at first. A good metaphor, for example, links two different things in a way that reveals something new. In a way, that’s a kind of intentional apophenia.
Even great scientific discoveries often begin with an intuitive leap—an unexpected idea that turns out to be true. The same mental machinery that can lead us to strange beliefs also gives us poetry, innovation, and insight (Mednick, 1962).
So the goal isn’t to shut down the pattern-making instinct; it’s to be aware of it. When we notice ourselves making a connection, we can ask: Does this pattern actually hold up, or am I just seeing what I want to see? That kind of question doesn’t kill imagination but helps us use it more wisely.
Why Modern Life Makes Apophenia Harder to Spot
The digital world we live in today is creating new reasons to see connections in coincidences. Social media platforms and algorithms show us examples of coincidence directly, in trending events, popular posts, and suggested content. We are potentially conditioned to be drawn to what we see as coincidences or to validate our beliefs or experiences. It is easy to convince ourselves that something bigger is happening. However, just because we see multiple headlines about one event does not mean that there is an emergency, nor does seeing multiple social media trends indicate that the world is radically changing.
When we see new results at a pace that exceeds our ability to interpret what is happening contextually, it is easy for our brains, wired to find patterns, to create a false sense of meaning regarding what we see. However, the innate desire to derive meaning from our life experiences is a fundamental human trait.
We seek to find patterns because we do not feel comfortable with randomness, and we feel unsafe in ambiguous situations. By identifying when we are searching for meaning in our experiences and removing ourselves (taking the time to breathe and reflect), we can maintain a clear mental clarity about what is happening in our lives while avoiding the emotional overwhelm of the imaginary.
Turning Patterns into Questions, Not Conclusions
At the end of the day, apophenia reminds us that perception is active and not passive. We do not just receive reality; we interpret it. What we see is shaped by our memories, emotions, culture, and expectations. This doesn’t mean we should stop trying to understand the world. It means we should hold our interpretations gently.
Instead of assuming that every gut feeling is true, we can treat some as hypotheses or starting points for inquiry rather than final answers. When we adopt such a mindset, we open ourselves up to more curiosity, compassion, and wonder. The world becomes less of a puzzle to solve and more of a story to explore.
A Feature, Not a Flaw
Our minds are always prone to apophenia. Apophenia enables us to dream, create, and build relationships among disparate ideas, sometimes leading to unpredictable and/or confusing outcomes. With a little bit of self-reflection and self-awareness, apophenia will not lead us astray.
If we regard apophenia as a weakness, we can also see it as a cognitive strength, as something to be proud of as human beings. What ultimately matters is not that we see patterns where none exist but that we react to patterns with curiosity, humility, and a desire to seek accurate answers.
