This image is often used as a test to establish whether or not you are right-brain dominant or left-brain dominant. The theory goes that left-brain people will see the dancer circling anti-clockwise, while right-brain dominant people are the other way about.
Too bad if you are, in fact, left-brain dominant. Not only will you be right-handed but you will also be unemotional, logical, precise, picky about facts, literal-minded, keen on law and order, and stuck in the past. In short, you are most likely a boring man.
Whereas the right-brain people will be out having fun. They are emotional, creative, intuitive, spontaneous, risk-takers who live in the present and are fond of stories, fantasies, symbols and other products of the imagination. In short, you are either a woman or a creative 'genius'.
But like most myths about the brain there is little truth in the left/right brain split. In fact it is the twentieth century equivalent of phrenology, in which it was thought that having a large bump over your left ear meant that you were less likely to be run over by a tram.
Although it is clear that each side of the brain carries out specific tasks (for example the left brain focuses on detail while the right on the 'big-picture') each side depends on the other in order to function efficiently. When you are looking at a painting you have never seen before, for example, you need both sides to help you appreciate it: the left side will give you information about the shapes, the colours and the borders; while the right will tell you what the picture is about. In the same way the left-brain produces the words you want to say; while the right shows you how to say them.
The technology we now have, in the form of MRI scanners, shows that, given any kind of task, whether it is emotional, analytical, creative, logical, or something else, many different parts of the brain will be firing while the task is being processed. And not only that Bodymind will, at the same time, be drawing its intelligence from the heart, the nervous system, the blood-stream, the tissues and organs, right down to the cells themselves. Both our logical and our creative ideas are being backed up by an array of emotions, feelings and gut-reactions that let us know whether or not we are on the right track.
The most one can say about the spinning dancer illusion is that it might test for whether or not you have rigid perceptions. If you can't get the dancer to change direction at least once after a few minutes you might need to change your personality.
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