Staring at yourself for too long in the dark yields terrifying results. The mirror is normal, it is your mind that becomes distorted. In normal observers, gazing at one's own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, produces the apparition of strange faces. Observers see distortions of their own faces, but they often see hallucinations like monsters, archetypical faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals.