The mind can create hallucinations that can affect your psychology. You might see things that aren’t there, like trees with faces. But these hallucinations might not just be in your imagination.
However, imagination is the key to seeing a face in a tree or clouds. So learn the science behind the resemblance of a face in any tree.
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Psychology Of Seeing Trees With Faces
Seeing a face by joining the dots of hollow stems and holes in the bark is not a fault of the brain.
Actually, the phenomenon of perceiving a meaningful structure or familiar pattern in inanimate objects or random stimuli, including trees, is called pareidolia.
It is a psychological condition where humans use their cognitive power to link an image in the subconscious with the one they see in front.
So, this makes them think of the tree trunk as a human body, branches as its arm, and leaves as its hairs. The entire face part might be just an illusion.
However, the Forked Radish and Mandrake root does look like a face, whereas the split roots look like legs. But, it might not cry to tear your ear apart as in Harry Potter.
Also, some flowers look like cats, birds, and even human skulls due to the distinct petal arrangement.
Tree With Faces: How Many Are There?
Coming out of all the psychological and illusion parts, there are old trees with rough barks that look like a person howling, surprising, or even smiling.
Some of the most famous ones are listed below.
1. Oak Tree
Oak is a mythical and spiritual tree with a history of gods and spirits inhabiting it. The tree has an enormous size and has lived for centuries.
After several changes in the bark throughout its growth, Oak starts having complex shapes and textures.
This makes people see faces in the Oak tree. Also, the lighting direction can make a knothole as an eye and a crack in the bark as a mouth.
2. Olive Tree
Olive is an evergreen woody tree with a long, slender thick trunk that changes its texture with age.
The barks become fissured as the tree ages, creating rough patches on the trunk.
These patches make us perceive the bark texture as a familiar and meaningful facial pattern, and light plays its role in each tree.
3. Beech Tree
Beech trees, often famous for their smooth grey bark, sometimes have rippled bark along the trunk.
This rippled bark is an unusual growth pattern of Beeches due to internal damage at a young age or water and hormonal stress.
However, the disruption makes the trunk of the Beech have holes and irregular surfaces.
Also, it is the home for various hole-nesting birds and wood insects. They penetrate the trunk and give it a hollow appearance which sometimes looks like a human face.
4. Maple Tree
The Maple tree dates back more than 100 million years. It has a lifespan of more than 300 years if planted in the right place.
Along its journey, the tonewood of Maple can grow up to 30 inches in diameter to give furrowed dark grey bark with uneven scales.
Also, the trunk’s uneven structure is home to a bird’s nest, which makes a hole in it and gives it a structure similar to eyes and mouth.
5. Banyan Tree
Banyan is one of the holy trees famous among Indians that actually move laterally by forming a dense web of branches and entangled trunks.
The Banyan tree has many aerial roots (about 3000) that tangle down the trunk to give it a dense configuration as the plant matures.
However, while doing the natural process, roots give a shape of facial structure mainly at the base of the plant.
Moreover, the Banyan tree extends its canopy to the extent that you can see a surreal tunnel under its shade.
From Editorial Team
Clear The Confusion!
The Weirdwood tree, also known as the Heart tree, from Game of Thrones is a fictional sacred, special tree with a crying face due to red sap.
Also, there is no actual presence of eyes and mouths in trees. It is just the arrangement of branches and fissures in the trunks that give it a facial pattern.
