Mirrors Are Special

Most of us clearly take mirrors for granted and simply trust that when we look in a mirror, we will see yourselves as we actually exist.  But what is actually happening to cause a reflection of something in a mirror?  The stimulus for beginning to research mirrors closer came from watching a short video clip, so I thought I would try the experiment myself to see if it worked for me.  The picture at the top of this article is of me holding a bottle of hand soap, pressed against a mirror, with a solid purple folder in between the bottle and the mirror.  One might believe that if you put something solid between the bottle and the mirror as I did, you would not experience a reflection of the bottle in the mirror.  But the reflection is there on the “other side” of the mirror, so to speak; as I moved around to the side to take a picture, there it was in the back of the mirror, as the only way I can describe it.  I will circle back to my thoughts on this ghost image that doesn’t seem like it should be there.               

I have been trying to wrap my head around how something could be seen in the mirror that is behind a solid object, so I decided to do some research on mirrors.  The best and easiest definition of a mirror is the following, which I credit to a website: https://www.livescience.com/48110-reflection-refraction.html. “When people look into a mirror, they see an image of themselves behind the glass. That image results from light rays encountering the shiny surface and bouncing back, or reflecting, providing a “mirror image.””  The thing that struck me the most is that a mirror reflects light back from the object in the presence of the mirror – does that mean that everything that exists is simply some type of light emitter?  It would seem logical then to assume that if we are looking in a mirror, and see ourselves, then somehow, we are emitting an image of light rays towards the mirror in order to see what we look like.  With the advent of quantum physics, there are clearly a lot of discussions that appear to support that everything that exists is simply energy arranged in particular patterns and that nothing solid actually exists.  To me, that is mind-blowing and strongly supports more of a matrix or simulated universe type of reality.  That is a lot to imagine and accept that we are bouncing the energy of who we are into a mirror to be able to see ourselves!  But even if you look at the small picture on the wall in my mirror picture above, you must realize that this picture is not anywhere near being in front of the mirror, yet it appears when I look at the mirror at the angle, I used to take the picture.  My understanding is that mirrors will return the reflection to the same angle that energy arrives at the mirror with, so I can more or less see how this might work.  However, I am still struggling with how the soap bottle is actually behind the solid purple notebook I held in between the bottle and the mirror. 

When I shared my findings with a friend, they dismissed this as simply a trick of the camera on my phone and talked about some type of prism effect causing this behind-the-mirror effect.  I am having a hard time blaming this on a lens flare type of issue, especially when I can see the same effect even when I am simply looking at it through my eyes.  It seems that perhaps the light is not just traveling in a straight line but in very strange ways.  One theory I wanted to present is based on the simple reflection of light back at the object that is emitting the light.  So, if everything in a mirror is simply a reflection of light back to the sender, then perhaps when we are looking behind the mirror and see the bottle that should not be there, perhaps we are the source of the object in the mirror.  If everything is simply reflected back, then perhaps we are the source of the light rays that are creating this bottle in the back of the mirror?!  I am clearly not a high-level scientist, but based on the simple laws of our universe, as we know them to be, we must be the source of this strange type of event. 

If the explanation of this event is not that simple, then there must be something else going on that is not supporting the norms of our universal laws.  Maybe there is much more to our reality than we ever imagined, and we are living in some type of holographic existence, simply some type of generated reality.  I used to be one of those people who took a mirror for granted, but not any longer; I am now convinced that there is a much deeper level of our reality that we have not yet accessed, at least as the commoner in this world.  Perhaps some super smart scientist can help me understand what I am experiencing with this simple experiment, but until then, I am simply going to accept this as a metaphysical experience that may not have any true definition or explanation.