It could be we "saw" what we expected to see when we look up at the moon, and usually when we look at the moon so there is some detail to see, so our brain superimposed what we usually see when we look at the moon.
At least in my case I felt the opposite. It looked dramatically different from what I expected. If I understood nothing of the astronomy I would not have guessed I was seeing the Moon in front of the Sun at all, but rather that the Sun had been stolen away and replaced by something dark and alien. I intimately understood why people in ancient times would have thought the world was ending.
This is interesting
r/Space Moon illuminated by Earth during eclipse
Oh neat, they were based in Madras as well! Their composite is beautiful, but it doesn't really look like what I saw. If the Earthshine on the Moon were that apparent I think the cause of eclipses would have been obvious in ancient times.
If I take my longest exposures (which get the middle corona) and bump the exposure by about 4 stops in lightroom, I can
just start to make out the details in the Moon's disk. It would have taken much longer exposures like theirs to make it clearly visible.
This is six shots with +5 exposure boost, aligned and stacked to reduce noise. A little bit of lunar surface detail appears, but all but the farthest rays of the corona are blown out.
They show the Moon's face as visible which apparently was my memory playing tricks and yet the same thing is happening in the comments. One user goes so far as to say they couldn't recall, then edited their post saying this picture looks close to what they saw. Human memory really can't be trusted
Yeah, I think this shows how prone the mind is to suggestion. Reflections/comments made during or immediately after the eclipse are likely more correct than those made days or weeks afterward, or upon seeing photographs.
I really can't imagine being able to see any of the moon's surface with the eye with the bright corona right next to it, but who knows, maybe you and some others did. People do see things differently.