Diwali 2025 Optical Illusion: Can You Find All Diyas Under 10 Seconds?

Close your eyes, imagine the hush before a firework blooms, then open them to a star-shaped shrine of light. At first glance the image is simple: rows of clay lamps, a swirl of rangoli, a few distant sparks. But the picture is an optical playground. Your eye wants to follow the brightest path, the central star, and the brain obliges, grouping lamps into easy shapes. That grouping is the illusion’s trick: it steals time.Look again. The star’s layered edges create little staircases that lead the eye up and down; these tiny steps host more lamps than you expect. Peripheral lamps hide in patterned rangoli swirls; the warmth of the glow blends foreground and background so your mind collapses separate lamps into single blobs of light. Meanwhile, symmetry

whispers “you’ve counted them all," but symmetry is a liar when detail lives in the margins.To beat the illusion, force a method. Don’t follow the star, scan. Start at the bottom left corner and move horizontally across, counting each distinct diya as you go. Repeat across each row until the top. Or try partitioning the image into four quadrants and count slowly in each quadrant, then add. Slower at first, faster as you get confident. Ignore the fireworks and background glow: they’re decoys.If you tried the ten-second challenge and felt tricked, you’re not alone. Our attention gets hijacked by light, depth, and pattern. The colorful rangoli is not just decoration, it camouflages lamps by occupying the same visual space, making some diyas look like part of the design and others like floating orbs. The mind fills gaps; it completes circles; it assumes repetition. Those assumptions shave precious seconds off your count.Ready for the reveal? The full number of diyas in the image is 27. Now that you know, try it again: pause, pick a counting strategy, and notice which elements first stole your attention. Optical illusions aren’t failures of vision, they’re fascinating demonstrations of how your brain organizes the world. On Diwali, that organization becomes poetry: light arranged into meaning, a trick and a delight all at once. Happy counting, and may your eyes keep finding light.