A brain-teasing auditory illusion that sounds like seven words at once has gone viral on social media – and it’s stumped the internet.

The debate is reminiscent of the divisive ‘Yanny or Laurel’ audio clip which saw millions lose their minds over which name they could hear after it appeared on Reddit back in May 2018.

Only this time it’s worse, with seven different words and phrases competing for listeners’ attention.

The terms are ‘Fortnite’, ‘iPhone‘, ‘nightfall’, ‘nine four’, ‘four nine’, ‘nice one’ or an ‘eye for an eye’ – but no one can agree on which one they hear.

Australians have been scratching their heads over a TikTok version of the clip since it was uploaded to the Instagram feed of Sydney beauty brand, Tribe Skincare.

The video, which has been liked 221 times in less than 24 hours, has drawn dozens of puzzled responses.

‘Okay, mind blown. I hear them all,’ one woman replied.

‘Once you read them you do start to hear them all,’ a second agreed.

A third simply wrote: ‘ALL.’

Another perhaps summed it up best.

‘Everything…once I look at the word I start hearing it,’ she said.

Others branded it ‘so much worse’ than the original Yanny versus Laurel debacle.

The chaos began on May 14, 2018, when a Reddit user named Roland Camry uploaded it to a discussion thread.

The recording swiftly went viral, with listeners incredulous that some could hear ‘Yanny’ while others hear ‘Laurel’.

A smaller number reported hearing ‘Yanny’ at first, then ‘Laurel’ or vice versa – which is even more mind-boggling.

Experts weighed in at the time, with Professor David Alais from the University of Sydney’s school of psychology calling it an example of a ‘perceptually ambiguous stimulus’ like the famous face/vase or blue/gold dress illusion.

Professor Alais told the Guardian these can be seen in two ways, with the mind often flipping ‘back and forth between the two interpretations’. 

‘This happens because the brain can’t decide on a definitive interpretation,’ Professor Alais said.

‘If there is little ambiguity, the brain locks on to a single perceptual interpretation.’

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