1
Stand square on
Centre yourself in front of the mirror so the seam between the two panes disappears down the middle of your face.
The Illusion Trail · Stop 7
The True Mirror
A mirror that doesn't flip you. Stand in front and meet yourself, at last, the way the rest of the world sees you every day.
Step up and look
An ordinary mirror flips left for right. Two mirrors set at a perfect right angle flip you twice, and two flips cancel out. What you see is the face the camera sees, the face strangers see, the face you almost never meet.
2
Wink, wave, write
Wink your right eye. Your reflection winks its right eye too, not the left. Wave with your right hand. Write a word in the air. Everything reads the right way round.
3
Sit with it
Most people find their own True Mirror reflection unfamiliar at first. Smile. Smiles, in particular, often land more honestly here than they do in your bathroom every morning.
A little about it
Two mirrors, one truth
The trick is simple, but the experience is anything but. Two flat mirrors are joined at exactly ninety degrees, with their reflective surfaces facing outward. Your image bounces from one mirror to the other, then out to your eye, having been reversed twice. Two reversals cancel. The result is a true picture, not a mirrored one.
People describe seeing their True Mirror reflection for the first time as faintly disorienting. Asymmetries you have never noticed (a slightly raised brow, a smile that lifts more on one side, the way your hair parts) finally appear where the world has always seen them.
It is, in a small way, the closest most of us ever get to meeting ourselves.
Continue the trail
More wonders ahead
Each stop on the trail is a different illusion. Follow the path through the trees, and don't forget to take a photo at every one.