I Keep Saying "Bloody Mary", But No One Will Bring Me a Drink

So, inspired by the odd matchup of topics covered by today's PvP and XKCD, I thought I would talk about mirrors, and some of the more interesting superstitions and urbal legends that go with them. Now while I have previously confessed certain irrational fears, I am by no means superstitous. Rather, I'm fascinated by what these things mean in terms of how our minds work.

Take, for example, the old "breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck". According to some random yahoo on the internet (and somewhat verified by WikiPedia), this stems from the belief that your reflection in the mirror is actually a reflection of part of your soul. I'm not sure what part of my soul I'm supposed to be looking at, but it would seem my soul is in need of a shave. Either way, I love that this started because rather than assume that maybe the image we see of ourselves in water or a mirror is just a trick of reflecting light, people naturally had to put a supernatural spin on it.

Even more fun for me though is the topic of the comics. So you go into a darkened bathroom, look into the mirror, and say "Bloody Mary", or the even more ominous "Bloody Mary, I killed your baby", some number of times, and a vengeful spirit will pop out of the mirror and...I don't know. That part is always a little vague, and kind of a moot point anyway, since anyone who falls for such shenanigans will never make it that far. I've always enjoyed this particular yarn simply because it speaks to how amazingly impressionable one's mind can be. Deep down, we know nothing is in the mirror but our reflection. Still, you look long enough, and eventually you're going to see something that isn't right.

And that's awesome.

Seriously, I love that. I love that we are machines built to take in information through our eyes and process it, and just for fun we mess that system up. You can tell people over and over that you see a ghost in the mirror or something in the woods or the Virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich, and eventually you're going to get someone who says, "Yeah...yeah I see it!". People want to believe, and they see what they want.

Of course when I look in the mirror, all I see is myself, which is both narcissistic and creepy at the same time given my previous statement - I'll have to go and reflect on this.