There's nothing like fumbling around in dark for a cord hanging from a ceiling fan to remind you that your perceptions are quite different than actual reality. When you could have sworn the fan was centered over the bed, and you've had eleven years to figure out where it really is, but haven't.

It gives you a pretty concrete example of the brain simplifying things, and organizing them for ease, but rarely truth.

I can operate my car, but when asked the proper sequence for starting it, like how far to turn the key when, I can't remember without actually doing it myself.

You think you have an organized picture, but you've already left out important information, and skipped over bits and pieces.

It's why a common drawing practice technique is to draw the negative spaces outside an object, instead of the object itself. You're no longer making what you think you perceive the obeject as, but instead are penciling the abstract shapes that will enable you to put down what's actually there, free from bias.

The idea of viewing things from a different perspective that allows you to see more clearly the reality of a situation obviously doesn't just apply to art.

However, I don't think I've found the technique that keeps me from bumping into that wall I swore was a little farther away when I walk across my dark bedroom to go to sleep.