It's impossible to see reddish green in the way we normally perceive colors, as it's a forbidden color. However, you can simulate the perception of this color.
Here's how you can try to perceive a reddish green:
- Find red and green objects: Choose a distinctly red object and a distinctly green object.
- Position the objects: Place the red and green objects directly next to each other.
- Cross your eyes: Gently cross your eyes so that the images of the two objects begin to overlap. The overlapping area might give you a fleeting sensation of a color that is neither quite red nor quite green, something akin to reddish green.
Explanation:
The human eye has color receptors (cones) that are primarily sensitive to red, green, and blue light. When we see a color, these receptors send signals to the brain, which interprets the combination of signals as a specific color.
"Reddish green" and "yellowish blue" are called forbidden colors because the nerve signals from the red and green cones, or blue and yellow cones, cancel each other out, so we cannot see them simultaneously. Our brains aren't wired to process these combinations. The method above attempts to circumvent this neurological limitation by artificially overlapping the signals through eye crossing. This is not true vision of a new color but rather a manipulation of perception.
