Persistence of Vision is the name for the quirk of the human eye that holds an image (really, an afterimage) a moment after the eye is plunged into complete darkness and whatever was being perceived is no longer perceivable. This physiological phenomenon is essential to the original mechanism of motion pictures: a series of projected still images, interrupted by a flickering shutter, which creates momentary complete darkness, is interpreted by the brain as a moving picture. (The vast majority of moving pictures these days do not depend on this cooperation of the mechanical projector and the mental receptor.)

Prefixing this term with the oppositional prefix, im-, implies contrary phenomena, either in known media, like comics (still images that are misconstrued as moving in time), or unknown minutiae, like the zigs and zags of my inconsistent life.