When I was in third grade, my mom had a friend who was a graduate student at SUNY Geneseo. I do not know whether she was in graduate school for teaching (it was a state teacher’s college at the time) or psychology. In any case, I was a guinea pig for a battery of “intelligence” tests, one of which was the Rorschach ink blot tests.
Recently, I was reminded of that experience when I started to notice “images” in the tiles on our shower walls. Renovating our main bath was a winter project for my husband last year and it included adding two walls of 6 x 6 inch ceramic tiles.
The shower has become a place of creative thinking for me over the years. I have written papers, important e-mails, and started discussions or stories, all in my head while I am in the shower. It is not uncommon for me to get out, dry off, and head straight to a piece of paper or my computer to write down some thoughts.
The ceramic tiles in our new shower have become like Rorschach ink blots to me! This was totally unintentional, but I started to notice that certain tiles reminded me of certain objects! So far, I’ve seen a buffalo head, a fish, a bespectacled alien face, another close up of a buffalo face, and a few more that I am not quite sure about yet, but return to looking at when I am in the shower, day after day.
The Rorschach ink blot test is a way to test personality traits and emotional functioning, basically looking for signs of thought disorder. It was popularized many decades ago. To be most reliable, it needs to be administered by a trained psychologist, and can be quite lengthy. You can read about it here and take an abbreviated version here. I would suggest that if you take the online test, you do so with a sense of humor regarding the results. True testing and interpretation should only be done by a professional.
I am not sure how much “stock” I put in these ink blot tests, but I know it was fun to experience one when I was a third grader and to be reminded of it while I gaze at my new ceramic shower tiles……
Wait……I think I see a butterfly! Yes, that’s it! A butterfly!
It’s all relative, isn’t it?
So, now it is your turn. Have you ever seen an image of something in a wall tile?
The Apples in My Orchard 
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