Look once you'll see a maximum of four. Look twice, you'll see eight.
But look three times and you might just get the answer to the latest internet puzzle driving people to madness and migraines.
For the record, there are 12 black dots.
![How many dots can you see in the so-called Scintillating Grid?](http://web.archive.org./web/20160916111128im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/e/u/y/a/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x0.png/1473718104195.png)
How many dots can you see in the so-called Scintillating Grid? Photo: Imgur
However, with four placed horizontally on the top row, four along the middle and four along the bottom, it seems it's almost impossible to see them all at the same time.
Instead, once the viewer's eyes are fixed on one dot, the others in that row become visible - but the rest in the grid seem to bizarrely disappear from sight.
The so-called Scintillating Grid is constructed by superimposing white discs on the intersections of orthogonal gray bars on a black background.
Dark dots seem to appear and disappear rapidly at random intersections, hence the label 'scintillating'.
When a person keeps his or her eyes directly on a single intersection, the dark dot does not appear.
The dark dots disappear if one is too close or too far from the image.
Stuff