Seeing Sideways - Spotting Patterns vs. Chasing Ghosts (Apophenia): A Guide to Clear Thinking

“Clarity means letting insight be earned, not assumed.”

Have you ever convinced yourself that “this always happens”—only to realise it might just be a coincidence?

In this episode of Seeing Sideways, I explore how our brains connect the dots—even when there’s no real picture to see. We dig into pattern-seeking and apophenia, the bias that fuels superstition, flawed decisions, and false clarity—and I share tools to help you stay curious, grounded, and resilient in a chaotic world.

Key Takeaways and Tools:

• What Pattern-Seeking & Apophenia Really Are
  My brain is built to find structure—even when none exists. From seeing faces in clouds to believing that “everything always goes wrong,” apophenia makes meaning out of random noise.
  [01:32]
• The Evolutionary Purpose Behind It
  It made sense to spot a predator that wasn’t there. The cost of false positives was low. But in modern life, these mental shortcuts often mislead us more than protect us.
  [03:00]
• The Hidden Costs
  Apophenia can drain my energy, warp my judgment, and feed everything from magical thinking to bad decision-making. I explore how this bias shows up at work and in relationships.
  [04:27]
• The Contrarian Move: Curiosity Before Certainty
  I’ve learned to pause when something “clicks” as a pattern. Just because it feels meaningful doesn’t mean it is. Introducing doubt gives space for clarity.
  [06:09]
• Apply the Rule of Three
  For a pattern to be worth trusting, I now look for three things: repetition, relevance, and reason.
  [06:13]
• Track, Don’t Assume
  If I sense a pattern forming, I don’t just believe it—I check it. A quick note, a tally, or a log helps me distinguish story from signal.
  [06:55]
• Mental Maturity Means Not Needing Every Dot to Connect
  Resilience doesn’t come from finding patterns everywhere. It comes from being okay when they don’t exist.
  [08:03]

Resources & Practices I Shared:

• Pause Before Naming the Pattern
  When I catch myself saying, “this always happens,” I now ask: “Always—or just recently?”
• Apply the Rule of Three
  I run new “patterns” through a simple test:
  • Is it repeating?
  • Is it relevant?
  • Does it stand up to reason?
• Track Instead of Assuming
  I log simple observations—like sleep, mood, or patterns in a colleague’s behavior—to separate fact from feeling.

Thought Exercise I Left You With:

Think of a pattern you’ve recently believed in—maybe something about how people treat you, how projects always unfold, or how luck seems to work.
Now ask yourself:

• What’s the actual evidence?
• Where might I be filling in the blanks with story instead of observation?
• What shifts when I stop assuming and just start watching?

What’s Coming Next:

In the next Seeing Sideways episode, I’ll dive into part two of this theme: the stories we tell ourselves, and how narrative biases shape our decisions, identities, and relationships.

If this episode gave you a fresh way to think about your thoughts, please pass it on to someone else. These mental habits aren’t flaws—they’re how our brains try to cope with complexity. But wit

Chapters

• 0:10 Introduction to Cognitive Biases
• 1:27 Understanding Pattern Recognition
• 4:16 The Cost of Apophenia
• 6:08 Curiosity Over Certainty
• 8:10 Clarity and Resilience
• 9:42 Conclusion and Reflection

Transcript

0:07

Ever catch yourself focusing on what's wrong instead of what's possible? Or judging someone too quickly only to realize you were off? That's not a flaw. It's your brain doing what it was wired to do, taking shortcuts. In this special series, we're walking through my book, Seeing Sideways, One Chapter at a Time. Each episode explores a powerful cognitive bias that quietly shapes how we think, choose, and connect. These mental shortcuts helped our ancestors to survive. But today, they can cloud judgment, limit perspective, and chip away at well-being. So this isn't about fixing your brain. It's about understanding it so you can lead yourself with clarity, respond with intention, and build resilience from the inside out. Thank you. Music. That explores the cognitive biases behind perception. And next week, we're going to look at another set of cognitive biases, and that is part two, the stories we tell ourselves. But anyways, let's jump into this week's episode. So what is pattern recognition? Well, it's the brain's ability to identify real structures, rules, and regularities in the environment. Some common examples are, for example, recognizing someone's voice in a crowded room. Identifying letters on a page, or on an evolutionary basis, spotting a predator in the tall grass. Now, apophenia, its definition is the brain's tendency to perceive patterns or connections where none exist. For example, it could be thinking about two unrelated events and finding some meaningful link, or believing coincidences are a sign of something. Now, your brain is a pattern detection machine. It's constantly scanning the world for meaning, structure, and connection. This instinct helps you orient, but also makes you see patterns where none exist. Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful relationships in random or unrelated data. It's why we see faces in clouds or faces in rock formations. This is called pareidolia. it's why we believe in lucky numbers or swear that song it always comes on when i'm thinking about it it's behind conspiracy theories and superstition and sometimes even flawed decision making your brain is trying to make sense of chaos but in doing so it creates stories that aren't real. The Trap. You're having a tough week and you notice three small setbacks. Suddenly your mind declares a trend. Everything's going wrong. Or you get a text from someone you were thinking about and feels it must be fate. Or you believe a specific ritual before a meeting improves your performance, even though it doesn't change your prep. Pattern seeking can also influence business and life decisions. You might think a dip in sales meaning a bigger crash is coming. When it's just seasonal variation, or connect an employee's bad mood with a deeper attitude problem. Once a pattern clicks, your brain holds on to it, even if it's just a coincidence. The Twist From an evolutionary standpoint, false positives were safer than false negatives. You'd stay safe if you were mistakenly thought rustling in the bushes meant a predator. If you missed a real threat, well, the cost was higher. So the brain evolved to err on the side of connection. It is better to see a pattern than to miss one. This was especially useful in tribal life, where reading subtle cues meant better social cohesion, better survival, and group safety. But in modern life, where complexity, randomness, and volume of data are much higher, this instinct can often mislead more than it protects. The cost. Apophenia can lead to over-interpretation, magical thinking, and confirmation bias. It can reinforce paranoia, superstition, and ungrounded beliefs. It leads to faulty cause-effect thinking in teams. This always happens after we do X, when the pattern may not even exist. In personal life, It can fuel anxiety, false hope, or fear-based rituals. At its extreme, it can make people vulnerable to manipulation or misinformation. But even in subtler forms, it drains energy by pulling your focus towards imagined patterns. Instead of actual priorities, you waste mental bandwidth and energy chasing meanings that don't serve you. The contrarian move. The human brain is built to connect dots, but not every dot is part of a design. Pattern seeking helps you understand the world, but apophenia takes that instinct way too far, spitting random noise into meaning. The challenge isn't to stop seeing patterns, it's to verify which are real and which are just mental habits filling in the blanks. Pause before you name it. Curiosity before certainty. The moment something clicks into a pattern, pause. Before you label it fate or luck or a sign, ask what else could explain this? The brain loves fast meaning, especially when you're uncertain or emotional. But introducing just a few seconds of doubt creates space for critical thinking to catch up with instinct. This doesn't block insight, it filters illusion. Let curiosity interrupt the rush to a conclusion. Apply the rule of three, repetition, relevance, reason. Not all repetition is meaningful. A real pattern usually carries three traits. It shows up more than once, repetition. It relates to what you're evaluating, relevance. And it holds up under scrutiny, reason. If it's missing any one of these, it's probably just a coincidence. Run this check when you notice a trend forming at work, in a relationship, or even in your mood. This trains your mind to stay anchored in reality Rather than stories built on selective memory. Track, don't assume. Let the pattern prove itself. The easiest way to escape apophenia is to gather data, not elaborate spreadsheets, just simple tracking. If you think a colleague constantly interrupts you, note when it happens. Record your sleep, your workload, and your mood if your energy always drops on a particular day. Patterns that hold will become clear, and those that fall apart, well, they'll loosen their grip. This isn't over-analysis, it's just how you shift from assumption to awareness. Stay open, but stay sober. Let insight be earned. Not every connection is a conspiracy, and not every coincidence is cosmic. You can stay open to meaningful patterns without jumping to mystical conclusions. Some dots truly don't connect, and that's not a failure of intelligence. It's a sign of mental maturity. Holding that space where you acknowledge possible meaning without forcing it, well, it builds a disciplined mind that can dance with complexity without getting lost. Clarity is resilience. Resilient thinkers know that meaning is powerful, but only when grounded. They resist false certainty by slowing their interpretations and demanding evidence before belief. They hold room for both pattern and randomness. And in doing so, they gain the rare ability to move through chaos with calm. Not because they connect every dot, but because they don't need to. As usual, I'd like to leave you with a little thought homework. This week, I'd like you to think of a pattern you've believed in lately. Something about how events unfold, how people behave, or what always seems to happen to you. Ask, what evidence do I have? Where might I be filling in the blanks to create a story? What happens if I stop assuming and start observing? So remember, the next time you catch yourself saying, this always happens, I want you to pause and then ask, always? or just recently? And that pause can open the door to a more grounded truth. And remember in the next Seeing Sideways episode, we're going to explore part two, the stories we tell ourselves, a new collection of cognitive biases. Thanks for listening to this episode of Seeing Sideways. These biases aren't flaws. They're part of how our brains make sense of a complex world. But with awareness, we can move from reaction to reflection, from assumption to intention. So if today's episode offered you a new perspective, please share with someone who might benefit. Because the real work of thinking clearly, choosing wisely, and leading with purpose, well, it's all an inside job. See you next time. Music.