Motorcyclists are very familiar with this phenomenon. Drivers will often look directly at you but since they are looking for a car, not a motorcycle, they don’t see you and pull out. Thus the bumper sticker, “Start Seeing Motorcycles”.
This happens to me all the time. My favorite theory is that either my husband, the cat, or a supernatural force hides the item for a time and then places it in plain view later.
I find it fascinating how you ridicule my point in one post, and then back it up in the next.
As Sherlock Holmes said, “You see, but do not observe.”
Do I need to repeat this again, or have you learned your lesson?
What your brain is visualizing is not what you are looking for. It’s called “selective misperception.” Like the time a friend dropped a green paper on her floor filled with papers and could not find it. I picked up every paper and found it had flipped over to the other, black side.