History Main / YourEyesCanDeceiveYou

* ''Film/TalladegaNightsTheBalladOfRickyBobby'', with Ricky's father training him in driving. [[RealityEnsues Since Ricky isn't a Jedi]], [[EpicFail it goes as well as can be expected]].

* Neo in ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'' could see machines when [[spoiler: Agent Smith, who had possessed the resistance fighter Bane, burned his eyes out of his head.]]

* [[{{Ninja}} Kaede]] of ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' does this to herself while fighting a dragon as part of her training in [[MagicWorld Mundus Magicus]].

* Anime/SonicX: When fighting a losing battle against a robot with camouflage capabilities, Sonic manages to best it by closing his eyes and relying only on his hearing sense.

* Played with a little in the ''{{ComicBook/Fables}}'' side story ''The Fencing Lessons'', from ''1001 Nights of Snowfall''. Preparing for a potential war with the underground-dwelling Dwarves, the humans are shown training blindfolded to accustom themselves to fighting in the dark, as they would have to underground. Then we see the Dwarves doing the exact same thing, except that instead of wearing blindfolds they're training in a well-lit room (and complaining about it just as much).

[[folder:Web Comics]]

->'''Obi-Wan''': [[TropeNamers Your eyes can deceive you]]. Don't trust them.

->'''Obi-Wan''': Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.

* Subverted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode [[LowerDeckEpisode "The Lower Decks"]] when the blind fighting session is actually training for a test unrelated to sight or combat: After receiving an insulting and abusive dressing-down from Cap. Picard, a young ensign is challenged to a blind-fighting test by her martial arts mentor, Worf. He's nearly twice her size, un-blindfolded, and a master hand-to-hand combatant. After several humiliating take-downs without her landing a blow on him, she rips off the blindfold and tells Worf she thinks the test is a totally unfair and inaccurate measure of her skill. Thats when he admits that it was actually a SecretTestOfCharacter (with a name he made up to sound cool in Klingon) and suggests that the next time someone treats her so unfairly, perhaps she won't take as long (or as many bruises) to complain. This helps her realize she needs to stand up to Picard, who is also giving her a SecretTestOfCharacter to see if she can handle a potentially harrowing and stressful secret mission.

* During his chariot race battle with Joseph in Part Two of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', Wham blinds himself to avoid being fooled by his vision. He then extends a horn-like antenna from his forehead that reads the wind currents, giving him a Daredevil-like radar sense.

In RealLife, this would only make sense if the skill itself involves an invisible element, or if the practitioner expected to perform the skill under low- or no-visibility conditions (thick smoke, underground, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick eyes gouged out]], etc.) Soldiers in a TrainingMontage may field-strip their weapons, disarm bombs, or perform other precision tasks while blindfolded for this reason. {{Super Soldier}}s do it instead of (or while) smoking, usually during the briefing sequence or the calm before the climactic battle scene. The goal of blindfolded training in martial arts is not to teach someone to fight blind, but merely to speed up reaction time so as to not get caught by surprise, blind or not.

* In ''Film/DeadMan'' Nobody pilfers William Blake's glasses while under the influence of [[MushroomSamba peyote]]: "Perhaps you will see better without them", he says. "This weapon will replace your tongue. You will learn to speak through it; [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome and your poetry will be written in blood]]." Sure enough, [[spoiler:the mortally wounded]] Blake becomes a [[PossessionImpliesMastery deadly accurate]] [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea|HourOfDarkness}}'', Mid-Boss tells this to Laharl word for word when Maderas is attempting to take advantage of his weakness to [[spoiler:sexy bodies and optimistic phrases]]. It's part of a grand speech about how to activate his inner energy, UseTheForce, and all these other things... [[LoveFreak Flonne]] tells him after he may have set the bar too high, so Mid-Boss simply says "Then just plug your ears and close your eyes." Even though Laharl promptly does this, this somehow doesn't seem to keep him from hearing all the relevant plot details in the [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome ensuing conversation between Etna and Maderas]], or fighting at full capacity.

* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' a pair of Smoke Knights try to cover their eyes when they know they're being attacked by a Night Master since relying on them will hinder them in the fight. Unfortunatly they are also being ambushed by spark hounds so when they stop blindfolding themselves to deal with the hounds the Night Master stabs them through the chest with poisoned blades from behind.

* Any performance that involves rapidly manipulating objects, such as juggling items or twirling a baton, flag, rifle, sword, staff, nunchucks, etc., lends itself to this. Tracking the object mentally and by feel is much more effective than watching it with the eyes. Besides, pulling off complicated maneuvers while keeping one's eyes straight ahead just makes it look all the more badass. A more mundane example would be touch-typing on a keyboard while looking at a monitor.

* Syaoran went through this when he learned to use a sword in ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle''. Turns out people in that show have some sort of infrared sensor.
** More like "chi sensor." Thermal energy and LifeEnergy are often conflated in fiction.
** Also, Shaoran can't see with his left eye, so he compensated with the other senses when reacting to attacks from that side, while he just relied on his sight for the rest. Kurogane was trying to improve his reflexes on the right side of the body.

* ''Anime/PokemonLucarioAndTheMysteryOfMew'' has Lucario dodging swinging logs while blindfolded in order to practice its 'aurasense' ability, all taking place during a TrainingMontage {{Flashback}} with Sir Aaron.
* ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'': The main protagonist, Clare, fights by ignoring what she sees and concentrating on feeling where her opponents are going to attack next. But then, she's a HalfHumanHybrid SuperSoldier and that's her MO...

* ''Franchise/StarWars''. Obi Wan makes Luke wear a helmet with the blast shield down (and Luke complains about being unable to see) before saying "Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them." Luke proceeds to actually do really well against the training orb thing. ESP is so handy. [[ChekhovsSkill Later in the movie,]] he puts this to use by turning off his targeting computer before firing the proton torpedo. Ironically, this would subsequently become the most glaring case of ForgotAboutHisPowers in the entire [[Franchise/StarWars franchise]]! In later films Jedi and Sith alike were regularly shown as being taken by surprise by things they could not see or hear.

* ''Film/TheBodyguard''. Creator/KevinCostner's character is in the woods at night with a professional killer. At one point, he closes his eyes and fires on the sounds of movement the killer is making.

* ''Film/TalladegaNightsTheBalladOfRickyBobby'', with Ricky's father training him in driving.

* During their Jujitsu training in Japan, the hosts of the HistoryChannel reality show ''Human Weapon'' were taught a samurai trick that lets them dodge an unseen (and unknown) attack from behind and counter in one, fluid stroke. How this would be useful to the samurai - besides possibly giving them a paranoid advantage over {{Ninja}} assassinations - is never fully explained, but it looks cool.

->'''Obi-Wan''': [[TropeNamer Your eyes can deceive you.]] Don't trust them.

* Any performance that involves rapidly manipulating objects, such as juggling items or twirling a baton, flag, rifle, sword, staff, nunchucks, etc., lends itself to this. Tracking the object mentally and by feel is much more effective than watching it with the eyes. Besides, pulling off complicated maneuvers while keeping one's eyes straight ahead just makes it look all the more {{Badass}}. A more mundane example would be touch-typing on a keyboard while looking at a monitor.