Remember those ‘Spot the difference pictures’ puzzle games when you were a kid (or even as an adult?) Remember how long it took you to find them all? I had troubles – enough so that I was the last person to finish them and go out and play kickball! No longer, I say!

Introducing a sure-fire way to find all the differences in “spot the difference” picture puzzles in a matter of seconds. Only two requirements:

You must have that “magic eye” skill used with those goofy pictures from the 90’s (involving crossing your eyes)

The “spot the difference” pictures should be side by side for this technique to work. If they are below and above each other, just rotate the pictures/page so they are side by side. If they are skewed, you can tilt your head a bit…although you’d probably look a little funny.

Ok, once you have found a suitable picture…

Stare at the pictures, begin to cross your eyes. You should see a third image appear between the two pictures. Focus on the middle picture, adjusting the tilt of your head so both pictures line up exactly. Once you’ve focused on the image, all the differences should look “luminescent”.

*This picture from AllStarPuzzles (click this link for the full size version)

The trick is to cross your eyes so that your left eye is looking at the right image, and your right eye is looking at the left image. Once they both line up, you should be focused on a joined image (a mesh of the two). The differences will “glow” because one eye is seeing something different than the other.

The real trouble to this technique is to convince your eyes to lock on to the third image, but once you get the hang of it, it should take you no time at all.

Now go and impress your drunk friends!