Can you see all 12 of these dots at once? (2024)

Can you see all 12 of the dots in this grid illusion at once? They don’t move or disappear, yet you won’t be able to see them all at the same time, even if you dart your eyes around the screen. Watch the PopSci video above to try the impossible.

This illusion is a variation on the grid illusion or Hermann Grid, which was reported by German physiologist and speech scientist Ludimar Hermann in 1870. Here’s another:

The scintillating grid illusion is an optical illusion, discovered by E. Lingelbach in 1994, that is usually considered a variation of the Hermann grid illusion.

It is constructed by superimposing white discs on the intersections of orthogonal gray bars on a black background. Dark dots seem to appear and disappear rapidly at random intersections, hence the label “scintillating”. When a person keeps his or her eyes directly on a single intersection, the dark dot does not appear. The dark dots disappear if one is too close to or too far from the image.

Watch these mind-bending videos next: The footstep illusion & more optical tricks, You Can’t See This (Mind Tricks), and Professor Kokichi Sugihara creates his mind-blowing illusions with math.