I came home and started doing some thing I was planning to do, when I saw a small ball that I had used in the past for releasing tension. I bounced it off the floor a few times and then threw up and caught fairly easily. At this point I somehow connected with my recollection of how they show ball games in the movies. You know, when they show a flying ball, everything blurred, but the ball - here it is, and the player catches it. Of course, when I saw it in the movies, I had always thought it was some cool special effect. Simultaneously, I connected with another thought that when I am catching a ball, it can feel like it is important for survival. In those movies it was very important to catch a ball, so important, that everything else blurred. So, I felt, if I really try to catch a ball, maybe I can overfocus too.
So I started throwing the ball up and catching it with one or both hands, trying to overfocus it. In particular, it tried throwing it in the direction of dishes, so I could overfocus on catching. After a few times it felt like I could see the ball better than everything else, but I kept playing in a random way.
After enough of this playing I started to notice that the background made a difference. It was particuarly pronounced when I was throwing and catching the ball while standing against my couch covered by a blanket with a deer pictured on it. The background was fairly monotonous, but not exactly so. I also felt that it made a difference if I kept watching the ball after it started falling from the highest point, and the longer I could track, the more I felt I could see everything else worse. Somehow, this probably came from the Bates concept of central fixation that I want to see everything else worse, but mostly just from this popular notion that when you focus you see other things worse, and with those movies where players catch a ball.
A few times I was able to track the ball from my hand moving up to the ball flying up, to the ball hanging in the air, to the ball flying down, to the ball being caught. What was new is that the moment the ball stopped moving in my hand, it was suddenly all very clear, not at all like it was when flying. This, as I already explained, only worked against some backgrounds, but it worked against the couch covered by a blanket with a deer. Every time I caught the ball and saw it clearly, the background looked like water, and there was a little wave going over the background as it stabilized. I also felt some sensation in the head or in the visual cortex, but it was not relaxation.
At this point I recalled the theory about binocular neurons. What if I had just 1 binocular neuron or a few? - and I wanted at least a million. I stopped all other things and just started to reproduce the experience, over and over and over, throwing the ball and catching, with as little variety as possible, to make sure the neurons get divided (if it is at all possible), or the neural pathways get created or stimulated, or whatever. As I felt more comfortable that the experience will stay, I started to vary the trajectories more and more. I was trying to throw the ball from the right hand to the left as back, to make sure it connects both eyes better, as well as different parts of the retinas.
I tried throwing the ball more to the side, where the other eye couldn't see it, and I couldn't really catch it. I could, but it was really hard. Then I tried closing one eye. Again, catching the ball was so much harder, even though it was not easy to say, what changed.
After throwing the ball for many times, I stopped, took the ball holding it with both hands and looked at it. The background went into blur right away. I started turning on one spot very quickly, still looking at the ball. Everything went into a mess, but the ball remained very clear. I could turn it, read my name on it, anything. Interestingly, I felt very dizzy when turning. I had never felt so dizzy from turning. Not that I was good at turning, but I had never had such an experience of dizziness. It felt as if my eyes tried to connect to everything they saw and to create a spatial awareness, and the brain or the visual cortex was exhausted by trying to constantly reconstruct new spatial awarenesses. Previously I had thought everything looks like a mess because it is so difficult to see a stable image since it is changing all the time, and the resulting visual mess is disorienting.
After the ball I tried other objects. Ball was probably a good choice since it is symmetric. When it is flying, both eyes see essentially the same thing. A pack of napkins proved quite difficult to handle, probably because of this effect. Another ball was too big. A safety razor was perfect - it was crisp and clear and I felt I learned to much from it. A toothbrush was quite difficult, and I couldn't really learn to catch it. I kept playing with all those things, looking at them, throwing and catching them, making sure the changes are deep enough to be permanent.
Amazingly enough, the eyes were not always in alignment. Even though looking at things seemed to bring the eyes closer together, in general the presence of the binocular perception seemed totally uncorrelated with whether the eyes were close together or not.
An observation. It occurred to me later that seeing an object better than the background is not really a binocular function. Every camera can do that. It is doable with one eye. The secret is in the visual habits. Binocular experience teaches the eyes to focus on the object. This is probably what I felt a few days ago when I was writing about intentionally looking at the surface of an object rather than at an object in general. Without binocular experience eyes may never know what it means to focus on something. Instead, the eye leading the monocular vision may focus on some random point appropriate for the occasion. There is little awareness of the notion of focus with monocular vision. In one of my previous posts I described a muscular awareness that happens when the gaze shift closer and farther, but this is too subtle for most people to notice. At least, for most people who have never studied Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais method, or anything similar. I believe, this is the most important component in reeducating the eyes for binocular vision: learning to look at the surface of the object. Even with only one eye open, this makes a huge difference. Even one eye open can perceive the surface of an object through the changes in accommodation. According to my current subjective perception, there is almost as much difference between seeing with one eye flatly and seeing the surface of the objects, as there is between the latter and seeing with both eyes.
So I started throwing the ball up and catching it with one or both hands, trying to overfocus it. In particular, it tried throwing it in the direction of dishes, so I could overfocus on catching. After a few times it felt like I could see the ball better than everything else, but I kept playing in a random way.
After enough of this playing I started to notice that the background made a difference. It was particuarly pronounced when I was throwing and catching the ball while standing against my couch covered by a blanket with a deer pictured on it. The background was fairly monotonous, but not exactly so. I also felt that it made a difference if I kept watching the ball after it started falling from the highest point, and the longer I could track, the more I felt I could see everything else worse. Somehow, this probably came from the Bates concept of central fixation that I want to see everything else worse, but mostly just from this popular notion that when you focus you see other things worse, and with those movies where players catch a ball.
A few times I was able to track the ball from my hand moving up to the ball flying up, to the ball hanging in the air, to the ball flying down, to the ball being caught. What was new is that the moment the ball stopped moving in my hand, it was suddenly all very clear, not at all like it was when flying. This, as I already explained, only worked against some backgrounds, but it worked against the couch covered by a blanket with a deer. Every time I caught the ball and saw it clearly, the background looked like water, and there was a little wave going over the background as it stabilized. I also felt some sensation in the head or in the visual cortex, but it was not relaxation.
At this point I recalled the theory about binocular neurons. What if I had just 1 binocular neuron or a few? - and I wanted at least a million. I stopped all other things and just started to reproduce the experience, over and over and over, throwing the ball and catching, with as little variety as possible, to make sure the neurons get divided (if it is at all possible), or the neural pathways get created or stimulated, or whatever. As I felt more comfortable that the experience will stay, I started to vary the trajectories more and more. I was trying to throw the ball from the right hand to the left as back, to make sure it connects both eyes better, as well as different parts of the retinas.
I tried throwing the ball more to the side, where the other eye couldn't see it, and I couldn't really catch it. I could, but it was really hard. Then I tried closing one eye. Again, catching the ball was so much harder, even though it was not easy to say, what changed.
After throwing the ball for many times, I stopped, took the ball holding it with both hands and looked at it. The background went into blur right away. I started turning on one spot very quickly, still looking at the ball. Everything went into a mess, but the ball remained very clear. I could turn it, read my name on it, anything. Interestingly, I felt very dizzy when turning. I had never felt so dizzy from turning. Not that I was good at turning, but I had never had such an experience of dizziness. It felt as if my eyes tried to connect to everything they saw and to create a spatial awareness, and the brain or the visual cortex was exhausted by trying to constantly reconstruct new spatial awarenesses. Previously I had thought everything looks like a mess because it is so difficult to see a stable image since it is changing all the time, and the resulting visual mess is disorienting.
After the ball I tried other objects. Ball was probably a good choice since it is symmetric. When it is flying, both eyes see essentially the same thing. A pack of napkins proved quite difficult to handle, probably because of this effect. Another ball was too big. A safety razor was perfect - it was crisp and clear and I felt I learned to much from it. A toothbrush was quite difficult, and I couldn't really learn to catch it. I kept playing with all those things, looking at them, throwing and catching them, making sure the changes are deep enough to be permanent.
Amazingly enough, the eyes were not always in alignment. Even though looking at things seemed to bring the eyes closer together, in general the presence of the binocular perception seemed totally uncorrelated with whether the eyes were close together or not.
An observation. It occurred to me later that seeing an object better than the background is not really a binocular function. Every camera can do that. It is doable with one eye. The secret is in the visual habits. Binocular experience teaches the eyes to focus on the object. This is probably what I felt a few days ago when I was writing about intentionally looking at the surface of an object rather than at an object in general. Without binocular experience eyes may never know what it means to focus on something. Instead, the eye leading the monocular vision may focus on some random point appropriate for the occasion. There is little awareness of the notion of focus with monocular vision. In one of my previous posts I described a muscular awareness that happens when the gaze shift closer and farther, but this is too subtle for most people to notice. At least, for most people who have never studied Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais method, or anything similar. I believe, this is the most important component in reeducating the eyes for binocular vision: learning to look at the surface of the object. Even with only one eye open, this makes a huge difference. Even one eye open can perceive the surface of an object through the changes in accommodation. According to my current subjective perception, there is almost as much difference between seeing with one eye flatly and seeing the surface of the objects, as there is between the latter and seeing with both eyes.
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