As a child I used to amuse myself at times by finding a background of
repetive patterns, such as a chain link fence, or wall paper with
squares or diamonds, or a tile pattern on a wall. I would then cross
my eyes until the pattern superimposed upon itself, and then refocus
on the new image. The illusion would be that the distance had become
less. Actually the process could be repeated to make the object appear
even closer. Then reaching a hand out to touch it would make it fall
back to the original image. A similar technique can be used with the
3-D art that came out several years ago, either by crossing the eyes
or by relaxing and gazing "through" the image, then refocusing.
My question is whether lots of children discover this phenomenon, or
was I just weird?

I can't vouch for all children, but I discovered it. It always
disappointed me when I reached out to touch something and it moved
further away!

shananigans-ga

Hi boomering (nice to see you again!)

Not weird at all.  I did it.  But I was born with a very weak muscle
in my right eye (extremely cross-eyed!) and had to force myself NOT to
do that with patterns and shapes.  :)

At this late stage in my life, I'm no longer cross-eyed... Thank
Goodness!

Regards,

tlspiegel
Google Answers Researcher

I did it also, and sometimes still do. My favorite was some 
1" by 1" tiles on the bathroom floor. Being so small, they 
were capable of being projected to several different artificial
distances. What's also fun is to take two copies of the same
image (say, in side-by-side windows on your computer) and 
merge them visually, which produces a mild 3D effect.