John Walter on Eye Contact & Authenticity

I am the only person in the world I experience in reverse.

My self-image is wrong in one giant way. And so is yours. The way we appear to ourself in a mirror, is not how we appear to anyone else.

And so, I was excited to discover that, John Walter, the inventor of the non-reversing TrueMirror, lived just across the river from me. Within days of connecting with him in Instagram, he invited me to his workshop to try it for myself.

I find the topic so baffling and so full of wonder, I wanted to share a conversation with him.

Hope you enjoy.

Peter

Where do you come from?

Where do I come from? First of all, it's a good thing. I know what you mean by that I come from the Bronx, no, where do I come from? So I think, maybe part of the answer comes from how I solved some of my problems. I had some eating disorder issues when I was in my twenties and I went to some therapists and talked about everything other than the eating issues and really.

Eventually I just solved it and I suddenly realized I don't have this problem anymore. And really what the solution was to ask myself, what am I really hungry for? Obviously I was going to food because food was filling this hunger inside of me and it really wasn't filling me up. And so I was eating more and more food and all that stuff.

So by asking the question, what am I really hungry for? And the answer came back as experiences. I'm hungry for experiences that, you know, and then when I flesh it out, that are meaningful, that are fun, that are exciting, that are adventurous, that's my, that's where my joy comes from is experiences. Coming from that place where that's what I'm valuing is the essence of the experience.

What did that ask of you?

So I was probably in my mid, early, early to mid twenties, maybe 24, 25. And I think it just turned the focus again from, because I definitely was looking for experiences. So when I realized that's what I was hungry for, when I realized if I go ahead and get experiences, I will fill that hunger.

And I think that's been true. I eat to live rather than live to eat and so that what really nourishes me is connection and people and experiences and fun and adventures, that sort of thing. So it just changed the focus a lot for me.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

My background is in math and physics. So I was at an early age and singled out to be, Oh, he's really smart. I skipped third grade and was like this, considered to be a very smart person.

And so there was a sense of, Oh, I'm going to be this person that has some sort of achievement at the end of my name, which was going and physics was going to be the avenue for it. First of all I became popular in college. I was very nerdy and shunned by my peer group and all of a sudden I figured out why and I changed it and all of a sudden became popular. And that's a long story, but it is actually related to the mirrors.

PS: You said you figured something out and you changed it. What did you figure out?

So it was basically my hair part. I changed my hair part.

PS: Is that right?

And if you Google hair part theory you'll see my stuff come up on it. In fact, it was a Radiolab episode I think in 2011, where we talked about it. And not just the hair part theory, but the mirrors as well, the true mirror as well.

What is the hair part theory?

John Walter: So it basically says that when you part your hair, You're emphasizing that side of the brain to the viewer, okay? And because of a thing called interactional continuity, because hair parts, especially for guys, tend to be on the same side for their whole lives, basically that, it's a bias. It's a little bit like body language, but you're signaling constantly more right brain or more left brain.

If you part on the left where the part is on the left, then people will see you as more left brained. If they part on the right, they'll see you as more right brained.

And as a guy, we tend to like men who look more left-brained. They're more rational, more logical, more masculine, more assertive, more visible. When you put it on the right, then you're projecting an image that's more intuitive and feeling and holistic, mysterious, feminine, all of these qualities.

Now, just a big caveat, these are generalizations that neuroscientists and psychologists can't stand that we use in public. This is quote unquote pop psychology. And yet there's a lot of validity to it.

And so what happened is when I was in front of the mirror one day, I had just had some photos taken, and the photos were very jarring. It was like, I'm in front of the mirror going, why do pictures always look so weird?

I look fine. And that's when I realized the guy in the mirror was a guy with a left part. And I'm wearing a right part, which when you take a photo, that's a true image. And it was like, eh. So I changed my hair part, I actually put my hair from the right to the left.

How do you describe True Mirror to somebody that hasn't encountered it yet?

And just to preface it the True Mirror is related to this hair part theory, actually. Because I figured it out about three years after I had found this hair part thing and eventually was doing my hair in the middle. 

What a true mirror is a mirror that doesn't reverse your image. So when you look at yourself, you're not backwards. And it's a very simple idea physically. And so there's, I got a little physics in there, but what happens is that what I discovered is that when you make eye contact with yourself, your eyes actually communicate correctly and they don't backwards. And this is brand new.

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

“Mirror, Mirror” a 2011 Radiolab episode about John.

“What is your hair part saying about you?: The effects of hair parting on social approaisal and personal development” a 1999 paper by John and his sister Catherine Walter

“The Mirror of Dorian Gray: Mirrors never lie, they say. But how much truth do we really want?” The Atlantic by Cullen Murphy in 1999

'It's in the entire time that such a mirror was actually a thing, it was patented in 1887, no one saw it as anything other than the physical. And yet, when I first saw it, it was like, Oh my God, there you are. And this connection to myself as a kind of a happy, having fun kid on the beach in California, okay, was amazing.

And part of the story is I, I was and I guess now because it's legal, I can say this, but I was high as a kite and I was just flying and I walked into the bathroom and the regular mirror just shot me down hard. And that's when I saw this double mirror combination, which is all it takes to make a mirror. True mirrors is two mirrors at right angles. Although, mine, and then I turned the corner and there was this double mirror, and I did a double take. Because I saw something that I recognized. I saw my happiness. I saw the sparkle in my eye. When you're smiling, the light of your eyes in the smile is why you're smiling. And when you flip your eyes in a mirror, you lose that why, and all of a sudden you're just looking like you have a fake smile.

If you think about it, you've had that interaction with yourself since you were a child, and you've completely identify with that version. And then all of a sudden I saw myself in the double mirror. I did a double take and I spent like five minutes just absolutely loving on myself and there was so much of All this crud, this self doubt and challenge and struggle just absolutely disappeared. I felt like I'd taken a shower

And that kind of forms the passion for why I get so into this mirror, because it really fixed me, my internal self image, the main thing is, I'm okay, I'm normal. There's nothing there's nothing abnormal about me, which I see, I still, to this day, I still see in the reverse mirror.

What was the journey from that moment to choosing to develop a mirror?

So interestingly, because this is part of the story of this. I immediately started to show people. It's yo, check this out, and they didn't get it. It was like, what are you talking about? And, I said no, can't you see the light in your eyes? And it's the people just, I got nowhere.

I figured, okay, maybe it's that line in the middle, that's causing it to be too distracting. And so it was like, maybe I can bevel the mirrors and I did all this stuff to try to fix it. and then About 10 years later, it really took that long. And I was so excited, because it was like, wow, I can actually make this so that it actually, people will see what I'm seeing.

Funny story, they still didn't see it.

The main thing is that I believe is that because the mirror has not been reflecting us in our natural expressions since childhood, we just stopped doing them. We come up to the mirror, as soon as we see ourselves. We shut down and it's just this hardwired neurological pattern that is very common for people. And so if you show up to the true mirror with that same pattern of just shutting down, it's not going to show anything. And so trying to get people to, to interact with themselves is one of the big elements that I discovered makes this experience actually come alive for people.

PS: If I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong-  is that we are conditioned to have a non-interactive interaction with a conventional mirror. So people approach the mirror without expecting any interactivity.

So that’s an interesting possibility, but it's not the real story, not the full story. Because you can't not interact with yourself. It's just at this other level, and part of the other level is that your face is not part of the communication, usually.

Your brain is still thinking, but your face is not reflecting what you're thinking. Like , those circuits have been turned off. And this is where I think it's a real problem, because you're interacting with yourself without your expressive personality, and you're identifying with this kind of mask-like version, and you'll tell yourself stuff, like about how you're feeling what you're thinking about what's going on.

And the sad thing is the expressions that really convey positive elements of your experience, like your happiness, your joy, your vibrancy There's a lot of activity in your face with them. The expressions that are more sad and down and or just quiet or they don't have a lot of activity.

So it turns out when you show up to the TrueMirror feeling really happy, like I was at that party, those expressions look really patently fake backwards. So you stop doing them. Whereas the ones if you're down and you look at yourself in the reverse mirror, there's not that much difference. The down, down elements still stick around.

And in my belief, they get enhanced because there's this layer Of judgment and criticism that kind of goes along with the fact that it's still somewhat fake, and we just don't know it. We just don't know that. The whole world doesn't know that the version in the backwards mirror is somewhat fake.

Yeah, I was going to ask, what's the primary difference in the self you encounter in the true mirror versus the self you encounter in a, what do you call a conventional mirror?

I'm going to call it a reversing mirror, reverse mirror, regular mirror, standard mirror. I think that the best way to describe the person in the reverse mirror is your doppelganger, it's like almost by definition, it looks like you, but it's not you, doesn't act like you, doesn't feel like you, doesn't express like you.

And yet, you think it's you because it looks like you. I think that core element causes so many strange problems. Our self image is built in part on what we're seeing in the mirror. It's built from lots of other things too, but there's this constant element that's in everyone's experience that's not quite real that we interact with in a dynamic feedback loop, that's always got this information distortion going on.

And so when you look at a feedback loop, you don't know what's going to happen with it. Like you take a guitar and you stick it next to an amplifier. Any kind of weird sound will start to come out based on where you put that guitar. so Where people end up going with their self image based on this communication feedback loop with distortion is all over the place.

It's very strange. One person will be very vain, another person will be afraid of themselves, another person will be, have insane body dysmorphia, another person will ignore themselves, another person will, like in my case, I just struggled.

You talked about, anytime that this has been mentioned, it's been explicitly and exclusively about the physical. But you're talking about something else, something different. What is it? What's happening in a TrueMirror?

Yeah, I mean to me when you look in a mirror, there's two elements to it: the physical and the personal being. Who you are. How you are. What you're feeling. What you're projecting. What others are gonna see in you. And when you look in a reverse mirror, you're seeing the physical, but the personal gets distorted. The physical does too. But the communication, which is the element of the personal, is what gets altered by being backwards. When you see yourself not reversed, you're getting both the physical and the personal. your right eye and the message of its right eye on the right side where it belongs, left on the left where it belongs. And this is the basis for your expression, and that's how your expressions match.

How do you use a true mirror? It seems like a different animal than a conventional mirror.

Well, say if this was brand new to you, the first elements are to just discover, what's there what's there that's new for me, it's like finding out what you look like with your real smile. And it turns out that it's a little bit hard to do a genuine smile to yourself. But if you just look in your eyes as your thoughts will flip through your head, your face will start to actually express that.

Now I'm seeing me as a person. What did I just learn about me? So when I'm looking at you, for instance, I know what you're seeing. I know how to be authentic, right? Which is really what you need to be doing. And realizing that my expressions are just going to be authentic. I know that if I have the genuine smile, it's gonna have these qualities to it, and therefore I can be comfortable with it. I remember before I was like hiding my smile because I thought it was fake especially my big smile

PS: In my work, people often talk about empathy, right? Research is about empathy. And when people ask me about empathy, I end up talking about awkwardness because I think awkwardness is like the frontier. There's a book called Cringeworthy by Melissa Dahl, and she came up with a theory of awkwardness. Which is the irreconcilable gap between how we perceive ourselves and how we think others perceive us. And it's, we get caught in this, this dissonance between, you reminded me of it a little bit when you were, when you described being, the ability to be authentic because you're, you have an awareness. That's how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you are the same. In a lot of ways, part of awkwardness is that we're suffering from this dissonance. We know, on some intuitive level, that the way we appear to other people is not how we appear to ourselves. And we're especially awkward because we know that's not true. I'm going to stop there.

What do you make of what I've shared about awkwardness?

I agree with where you're coming from. And I just want to add a little bit of the idea that we look different depending on who we're looking at. Okay. Similar. Okay, but my range of expressions with you is going to be different from my range of expressions with someone that is going to be, say my partner. I am different with you than I am with someone else, because it's the conversation, it's the feelings, emotions, it's the levels, it's the degree, it's the depth, all that kind of stuff.

When I look at the True mirror, I'm seeing. the authentic version of me, . So I think the goal is to get yourself in sync. So first of all, I learn about myself through you, through my experience with other people. I learned more about myself, but when I come up to the true mirror, It matches, it's like there's not this dissonance. that this doppelganger introduces every time I make eye contact with it,

Do you have traditional mirrors in your house or do you have all true mirrors or do you use them differently?

So I have the regular medicine cabinet mirror, and I have a true mirror right next to it. And I actively avoid looking at my eyes. in the reverse mirror. So if I'm out and about, I'll go to the restroom at a restaurant I won't make eye contact. It's like literally that's the moment when that doppelganger springs to life. And again, you think about the neural pathways, that's like hard, hard coded, and so by not registering that version of me in my brain, then that whole movie doesn't start. You know what I mean?

One of my key recommendations for anyone once they hear about the true mirror is yeah don't even use the other mirror. It doesn't help. It doesn't serve you to connect with that version, which just tells you oddball things.

Yeah, even if you like it, you're going to be liking something that's not actually real and I'm saying that Because a lot of people say, but I like my backward self much more and that's usually because you're familiar with it and it's less crooked, but it's not real. . I think that really does a disservice to your mental wellbeing to be connected to this version that doesn't exist.

How long have you been making these and how is it going? What's it been like trying to build this business?

So it's been 31 years. I started in 1992. So now it's 32 years going into. and like I Said, when I first started showing people, they still didn't get it. And then I would take it around to psychologists and they wouldn't get it. And, so what I found took a really long time to figure out how to talk about it to people.

And so it wasn't until probably maybe 10 years ago, actually it was 2003, I went to my first Burning Man, okay, and Burning Man was the first time I had like more than three quarters of the people going, Oh my God, this is amazing.

It turns out it's one of the strangest products that you can imagine. You would think, 'cause it's literally applicable to every person in the world. Everyone that has a face is going to have some kind of interaction with this. Unlike any other product, and yet because of that weirdness that's going on, that's deeply embedded in our psyches with the mirror. People are really funky about this.

What have you discovered about People that buy TrueMirror? Do you feel like you can pick your customer out of a crowd.

I can pick people out of the crowd who will have a good experience, okay? And usually they're vivacious is the best way to describe them. And they can't help but see the difference. But, what's interesting about the coaching is, the biggest complaint I have online in comments is I'm just, it's power of suggestion. this is just b******t. It's Power of suggestion. And I think that it is more of a catalyst like I'm catalyzing the reaction and then, the reaction happens or not, if it happens it's a genuine reaction.

In terms of the awkwardness, yeah, I think it's related to the fact that we have this strained relationship with ourself. And again, there's probably a dozen reasons for it, like getting bullied as a kid, for instance, but this primary source of inauthenticity has never been questioned.

How has the TikTok, you mentioned you go viral, you get lots of views on there. What has it been like trying to grow the business on TikTok?

I think at this point there's 170 million views tagged with True Mirror. They're not all mine. But it's basically a lot. And Instagram, I just had my first million view video that went up. That was great. This algorithm was just designed for this kind of stuff. So it's been great. lots and lots of Interactions, a lot of comments.

I really want this to be a helpful thing for people, again, back to experiences we're all hungry for this kind of, being okay with ourselves. And I think it's, if you fix the interface to yourself, you have a much better chance of that.

Is TrueMirror is built on a theory of eye contact?

It's eye contact with that feedback loop, which is just way more intense. So me and you were in this communication loop and we talked about zoom being Yeah. Disconnected. yeah, it's interesting. You sent some stuff on the ways they're fudging that - using AI to shift your eyes to the lens. Like now I'm looking right at the lens, but now I can't see you.

General communication involves eye contact. It's one of the most dynamic things you can imagine in the universe that we know of is two people making eye contact with each other because we're so responsive. Boom, boom. But to yourself, it's amped up even more.

And that's where the theory goes is if you flip your eyes, you can't make eye contact with the person behind the eyes. That's where eye contact to yourself, again, for everyone is just absolutely bonkers in reverse, it's not real. It doesn't work. and it's missing so much of what we absolutely know is important with eye contact with other people.

PS: No, I feel like the image that keeps coming back to me about my experience of the true mirror is that it called attention to the fact that all my experiences of other human beings are so alive in a way because of this, the eye contact thing, except for my experience of myself. So my own experience of my own appearance is dead, when compared to every other human experience I have with somebody, and it's shocking that's the case and that's the foundation of my self perception is this flat.

And you're not alone. This is common. In all the years I Probably just a handful of people could keep themselves really going for more than five seconds in a mirror. Yeah, especially smiles. Almost everyone's smile fades within a few seconds in a mirror. And that's the one that has a lot of light in it,

PS: And I wonder too, this is what I'm putting on my marketing hat, the degree to which, the challenge that is that you're moving against this massive cultural, all the behaviors and the questioning and all of the expectations. The culture is so fixed. And the attachment is probably so strong that it's very difficult to see anything other than what is assumed to be there, which is. It's a fascinating challenge as a marketer.

It's nuts. And, because You think, oh, this should be great. Improve one of the primary things that every person has in their lives. And then realize, no, there's something else going on.

PS: I wondered about that because it feels like you do it with the coaching. In any other kind of Marketing they would be able to build culture around the product.

Are there rituals that you are aware of that people have developed around TrueMirror?

Sure. the ritual I did with you is the affirmation. A whole thing of, say I love you to yourself in a mirror and, affirm, I am a positive force for good in the world and all of the things that people have that they really want to be.

Taking the affirmation concept where you go up to the mirror and you go, I am a force for good in the world, and before you affirm it, you actually ask yourself the question. So you say, am I a force for good in the world? And then you just sit with that for a while. Whatever you come up with will start to show on your face. Your face becomes a dynamic valid accurate reflection of what's in your mind, because that's how they work.

So by doing that you're generating the concept in your head and then it shows up on your face and then you affirm anyway. So am I forced for good in the world? Yeah, I'm a force for good in the world. And then you validate, do you know what I mean? Because if it's easy, you go, Oh, hell yeah, I'm a force for good in the world. and you got that strength.

PS: I am running near the end of time ....... have you encountered eye gaze that people do eye gazes on instagram? I think it's hashtag eye gaze. And then she'll, I think what she's doing is just looking into the camera, but it's what she's saying or inviting you into is an experience of eye contact with her.

So eye gazing in, in practice One on one. Yeah. Have you seen that before? And you just sit in front of someone and you just stare at them?

PS: No. Only Marina Abramovich, “The Artist is Present.” Do you remember?

That's a very common, exercise with workshops and seminars. Yeah, and I can't stand it, because I need my eye contact to be attached to something as opposed to just staring or just let me be with this other person non verbally. I don't know where to go with it. Other people swear by it.

PS: I thought it was striking that she was forming this icon, this, this sort of therapeutic connection on an Instagram account, which of course you weren't there's no it's so strange. Speaks to a hunger to return to the beginning. It speaks to a hunger right that we have for that kind of connection that you get.

And part of my belief is that fulfilling that hunger, which is really, “Who are we? What am I about?” Filling that can absolutely take like a dozens of methods. Workshops, reading, interactions Experiences, adventures, eye gazing, affirmations, all that stuff. There is lots and lots of ways to make that add to your experience of yourself. My belief is that the TrueMirror actually works with all of that.

How would you describe all of those things? Those are all ways to…?

John Walter: you could call them woo woo

No. I'm serious. They're all ways to….what?

It's basically self awareness and self understanding in the service of an enhanced experience of your life. The unexamined life, where you are just punching the clock? There is a lot more to life than that. And if you start to search for it, you'll find all sorts of new things to think about.

PS: Last question. So this whole conversation I'm using this sort of teleprompter, and in my mind, you're experiencing eye contact. I should be looking directly at you.

Have you felt any of my attention or eye contact in our conversation?

Oh, that's cool. No, I was noticing that. Yeah. No, I think It's good. It's good. I think that it's good tech, it's good technique. So is it just reflecting off of the glass? Interesting. Of course, are you looking at my reverse face or my forwards face?

PS: Oh my god. See, that's the thing where I get dizzy. I can't keep up with all the switching.

I'm touching my right eye. Is it the same side as your right eye?

PS: Yes.

See, so you're looking at my mirrored Image. Yes. you're not Seeing me with my natural expressions.

PS: You fix one thing, solve one problem, create another.

I'm really appreciating I do see that you're looking right at me. Yeah, but I'm not looking at you. You can see I'm nicer. So now if I look at the lens now I am. I can't see you. So I can't. This is non-interactive. I had that little filter thing. It's because I'm staying with you. It's good. And I'm going to interact with you. So it's interesting, but I like your technique except that it's backwards.

PS: We'll get there one day. Listen, John, I want to thank you so much for the time.I'm really excited to have met you and to have seen it.

I'm so glad. And it really was fun to say, yeah, I'm just around the corner. And you was like,

PS: I had no idea. Yeah, that's cool. Awesome.

All right, Peter. All right. Thanks. And I look forward to seeing this and also your other stuff. It looks like you really have a lot of good work here. You've been

PS: Beautiful. Thank you.

All right. Cheers, man. All right. Bye bye.

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