Visual experiences of 3d: the Museum of Modern Art

In the museum I've got an interesting new feeling that it is a space full of people that came to see art. I already wrote about this phenomenon. Before it was about me going to a museum and seeing art that's over there. Now it is a place full of people, and I am one of them, wandering around in between pieces of art.

Let me write about good things. First of all, Kandinsky. I am not sure if I have seen this painting today at MoMA, but you get the idea, what kind of paintings by Kandinsky I am talking about.

If we take it for granted that Kandinsky had synesthesia, then it's so simple. No more worries trying to understand his pictures. You know how people look at his pictures trying to figure out what he meant? Picking up lines, circles, splashes. That's how I had been looking at the "Magic Eye" pictures, trying to discover something in the patterns, hoping that it will suddenly show me that hidden picture. I still cannot see them, by the way, but now I can look through, and at least I see that it is possible to see something else, not just whatever is printed on the page.

I can try to understand synesthesia through my understanding of stereopsis. Just like it is virtually impossible to imagine stereopsis unless and until you have it, it should be virtually impossible to imagine synesthesia unless and until you have it. That is, you may be thinking for hours about how sounds can be colored, and not get anywhere. However, I can relate to it by interpreting stereopsis as synesthesia. Then I can project it further and get at least some sense of what seeing sounds or hearing colors may be like. Furthermore, there is the natural smell-taste synesthesia that virtually everyone has but hardly anyone recognizes as synesthesia. In summary, if you want to understand Kandinsky, relax and look at the painting non-habitually.

I also noticed, as I looked at his paintings longer and longer, trying to connect to various parts of the visual system, how sometimes the whole room got darker. At this point the picture would sometimes disassociate into two or three layers, that is, each contour would belong to one of the layers, and sometimes one of the layers would be shifting with respect to the others. The layers were not separated in space, though. Also, at the same time as it got darker, all colors would disappear, and the picture would become brown-grey instead of red-yellow-blue-green-and-who-knows-what-else.


Then, Claude Monet. Look at the lilies. Those are not the ones that are at MoMA, just whatever is easy to find in the Internet.

I don't think I had ever realized that all those paintings showed the surface of the water at an angle. You just have to take my word for that... I had surely realized those were lilies on water. But you can actually see that there is an angle. You can see what angle the surface of the pond makes with the surface of the picture. This is new.

In fact, now as I looked at a huge painting with those lilies, I could easily see how the pond continued outside, from out the picture. I am not sure normal people can do that. I guess, a normal person would need to close one eye in order to suppress the feeling that the canvas is flat and to see the volume. I would assume that Monet himself was able to see volume with both eyes open. I can certainly switch back and forth with both eyes open: to see just the picture or to allow the water to continue out into the space of the gallery, with the lilies.

I tried the same with Picasso - it didn't work quite well, but it seems possible. That is, instead of just conceptualizing, what a cubist painting may be about, one can simply see the space in it as it is, albeit different from our space. I recently had to exercise my ability to see distorted space when I noticed my reflection in the faucet in my bathroom with one eye deviating to the side. As I looked in the regular mirror, however, the eyes were fairly well aligned. I guess, fusing two curved images was still a little bit too much for my brain. However, I was able to improve it, to a degree, by looking into the reflection in the faucet and seeing there the space in the bathroom, but curved. The same technique can be applied to Picasso: look at the painting, perhaps with one eye only, and see the curved space inside it. Not sure if it has to do with the observation that Les Demoiselles d'Avignon actually have strabismus, at least the three of them whose eyes we can clearly see. Of course, their eyes are not the only thing in the painting that can remind me about strabismus: with a moderate stretch of imagination, the whole picture may be seen as the result of switching between the views from two eyes.

After the museum I went to have dinner in a place called Lindy's on 7th avenue. Just a warning if you decide to go there: read the menu and the prices before ordering. The pricing is counterintuitive. I had a great dinner there and paid about $35 including a very generous tip, but once again, the prices are totally random, so you have to choose wisely. One interesting experience with binocular vision was when I went to the bathroom... On my way back I looked at the landscape of the cafe and felt a little bit lost, because the landscape didn't look like anything familiar. However, then I recognized that it didn't look like anything familiar because I was at a different angle, and I still used my old and ineffective navigation habits. Instead, I looked at the structure of what I see, realized what was where, and as I turned to the right, the environment rotated, showing me the familiar picture with my table, just what I was waiting for.

As another interesting experience, after I had my dinner I was thinking what I wanted to drink or if I wanted a desert. I took some time because of the random prices - I spent several minutes reading it over and over. I noticed the waiter in my peripheral vision and thought he was going to ask me if I had finally made some decision. At this time I was drinking water from a glass, so I automatically stopped drinking and barely started moving the glass from my face. Almost simultaneously I noticed that I noticed - that is, I became aware of my very reaction, and started deciding if I wanted to inhibit it, to go back to drinking, put the glass on the table, or something else. Of course, all that took only a split second. Yet at almost the same time the waiter slightly shifted his direction so, as I recognized in my peripheral vision, he was now moving a little more away from me, and said something like "Don't worry. Please, take your time." - and left.

This impressed me so much. This guy noticed my reaction so early that by the time I started inhibiting it or otherwise deciding what to do with it, the glass still an inch or two from my mouth, he had already changed the trajectory of his walk, and was ready to start saying something to me. It was probably an automatic response on his part. In other words, the only possible explanation is that he did what he did subconsciously, as a result of his experience, after having served to many different people and learning to pick up all kinds of signals. Anyway, that's why I left him a tip in excess of 20%.  Good job.

Suppressing stereopsis

I decided to try to suppress stereopsis to see if I am still able to push everything on a flat screen.

I started trying outside, on the street. The method I used is the following: I tried to conscious reinterpret whatever I was seeing as a flat picture. I tried looking with one eye and looking with both eyes. I found it particularly useful to look at the road, thinking that as the road moved away from me, it was going up. I was also trying to see people coming towards me as going down and growing, increasing in their size. I was trying to see people going away from me as going up and decreasing in their size. In addition, I was trying to soften the outlines of the objects to see people and other objects as pasted on top of the background.

Sometimes the illusion was starting to work, but then something happened, and I went back to stereopsis. I found the following triggers:

Moving person. If there was a person walking close enough to me, then it almost inevitably triggered stereopsis. It was easier to see the person two-dimensionally if he or she was moving either towards me, or away from me, or perpendicularly (the easiest). Even then I had to remind myself that I was seeing a flat picture pasted on a flat screen and to constantly inhibit any 3D interpretation. If the person was moving diagonally, and fairly close to me, I basically had to look away, because I couldn't push such a person onto a flat screen.

Trees. I was somewhat able to view trees as flat. However, as soon as I looked up on the interweaving branches and the complex patterns of the leaves, the stereopsis became very strong, and there was virtually no way of suppressing it. It was like looking at something red and saying to myself "It is blue! It is blue!" in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Sharp outlines. This is a very strong reflex. I would start to feel I was going back to a flat way of looking at least in some respects, then I would suddenly see a plant, a person, or anything else, with a very sharp, clear outline, and the sharpness of the outline will collide with the flatness I was trying to look at face to face. The stereopsis gets restored suddenly, and I feel as if a bubble suddenly appeared in my brain and was rising to the surface. In order to keep some flatness it is necessary to soften the outline and to repeat to myself that this is just a flat picture, not a 3D object, but this still does not quite work. Basically, I had to look away from all sharp outlines if I were to get at least some flat effect.

Shadows. This reflex is also quite strong. If I see a shadow that is a particularly good cue for volume, that is, its relation to the object casting the shadow highlights the three-dimensionality of the object and its location in space, it is again very difficult to see a flat picture. It is not enough to ignore the shadow. I have to imagine that the shadow goes at a wrong angle in order to keep some flatness. I have to constantly keep reminding myself that the shadow is slanted and to constantly inhibit the 3D interpretation of the shadow.

Perspective. This is perhaps the strongest reflex. A few times I felt like I was starting to see a flat screen again, that is, my previous reflexes were starting to work. Then I would suddenly notice that I was seeing a path going away from me, or an arch enclosing the entrance to some building. This would elicit a strong sense of perspective immediately restoring the stereopsis. It is very difficult to suppress the stereoscopic interpretation of perspective. I have to constantly remind myself that the verticals I am seeing are not verticals, but slanted lines.

Overall, when there were many of those triggers, it was virtually impossible to maintain any kind of flatness. It was much easier if I turned away from most such objects and tried to only look at things that were not strong stereoscopic triggers. It was easier to see flatness if I was not moving and if other things were not moving either, at least not very close to me. I found many more stereoscopic triggers outside than inside. Now I am in a cafe with Internet writing down these notes. Here there are not so many triggers so it is easier to suppress stereopsis. In fact, here it is even difficult to say whether stereopsis is active or not, since for this environment it doesn't make that much difference. The organization of space in this cafe really encourages seeing everything as a big mess of pictures pasted on top of each other. Also, the coloring scheme used in this cafe allows me to see the floor and the walls as continuations of each other, which also makes it easier to suppress stereopsis.

I conclude that it is better to work on developing stereopsis outside.

Another conclusion is that it is virtually impossible or at least very difficult for a normal person to experience flat vision, given that it is already so difficult for me. There are so many triggers of a stereoscopic worldview, and most of those triggers have to be inhibited in order to gain a different perspective. If you are interested, I suggest you start from a painting or a photograph. Look at it with one eye and try to alternate between the flat interpretation and the 3D interpretation. When I say "alternate", I mean "consciously switch back and forth between two interpretations", just like you can do with this picture:

You can see how looking at one or the other mouth or nose triggers one or the other interpretation. In much the same way certain objects, shades, or outlines can trigger 3D or 2D interpretation of the whole scene.

This reminds me of my work with a speech therapist a little less than a year ago. I was working to improve my English pronunciation, since even though I was and am completely fluent, I had gotten tired of the imperfections of my speech.

When people live abroad and use a foreign language in their daily activities, they usually pick up more and more words, so their vocabulary grows, their understanding of the subtleties of the meaning of the words and of the grammar gets refined. However, for many people their pronunciation does not get better. A lot of Russians, for example, live in the United States for decades, and still pronounce words in the same way. They will say "bus" with the same vowel sound as in "father", over, and over, and over again. In fact, many Russians will not even hear the difference if you ask them to pay attention and compare the vowel sounds, and then pronounce "bus" and "father" very clearly. So strong are the habits of the mother tongue.

Similarly, a lot of Russians will pronounce the word "very" with a sound [w], even though [v] is almost identical to its Russian counterpart, while [w] is quite unusual. There is something in the way people learn and conceptualize Russian and in the way Russian native speakers learn and conceptualize English that makes many Russian native speakers incorrectly deduce that "very" should be pronounced as "wery". Again, it is difficult to hear the difference, because once you have a framework in your conscious or subconscious mind, you hear what you expect to hear.

As I was working with my speech therapist, I was recognizing more and more of my linguistic habits. It was not so much about being able to say a particular sound, more about simply hearing the sounds of the English language as they were. I recall one particularly successful session when I felt I made a lot of progress. At some point my teacher was saying some words or simple sentences, and I was repeating them. If it was not good enough, he would say again, otherwise he would move on to some other word or sentence. I remember how things started to really work when I was able to stop listening to the language and start listening to the sounds. I disengaged from the meaning and was just reproducing the phonetic patterns that I was hearing. As
I was able to let go of the meaning more and more, I stopped recognizing the words, and the process became easier and easier. A few times my teacher was very satisfied with how I repeated some word or sentence, and then I asked him to explain, what was the word or the words that I was repeating. In most cases words were very simple, yet I couldn't get them. When after a few repetitions I would understand the word, I was often surprized that this word or expression can also be heard or pronounced in this new way. It was probably essential that I did not have written words in front of me, for my habitual way of saying and hearing was strongly connected with how a word is written. I subconsciously applied some of the principles of Russian language and it made me hear and say English words in a typically Russian way. For example, when seeing the written word "letter", I would naturally try to pronounce the sound [t] twice. Similarly, I would make a longer sound [s] when saying "massive" than is necessary. When saying "baby", I would hear and pronounce the second vowel sound as [ə], the second vowel second in "after" or "matter", instead of pronouncing it like the vowel sound in "tree".

Why relaxation changes habits

 In Alexander Technique people often talk about habitual tension and how you can release the tension in your neck, in your shoulders, in your back, and learn to do the ordinary things or whatever it is that you do every day without this tension. Dr. Bates, the creator of the Bates method, was also writing how most difficulties with vision come from excess tension, and we can only relax the eyes, our vision will, in many cases, become very good. This makes sense for myopia if we assume that the eyeball is elongated because of the excess tension in extrinsic eye muscles. Similar explanations can be constructed to explain why double vision, or lack of binocular vision, or poor night vision also come from excess tension. However, there is something unsatisfactory about this explanation.

It seems that "excess tension" often denotes "poor use", where the word "use" is to be understood in the context of Alexander Technique. "Tension" just refers to an effort, conscious or subconscious, to interfere with the natural course of things to gain some end. In many cases what is called "tension" is really an adaptation.

I've been recently thinking about breathing and relaxation and, particularly, why is it that when I take a lunchtime yoga class in a fitness club at work, it is as I noticed more difficult to breathe freely during that class, than when I take a yoga class at some other time, perhaps during a weekend. Even though the fitness club in question is underground, I thought that perhaps I picked up some tension from other people at work, or even tensed myself, and so it affected my breathing.

On another occasion I was looking myself in the mirror while at work and noticed with disappointment that one of my eyes again turned away. Then I somehow recalled what I had been thinking about breathing, and started to breath deeply, trying to slow down and relax. To my amazement, the eye started turning back to the aligned position.

I think now I understand it. The eye turns away as an adaptation, when there is a contradiction between the input from both eyes that is difficult to resolve. If the situation is urgent and requires an immediate action, it is essential to provide as accurate visual input as possible, thus the eye turns away. However, if I am more relaxed as there is no immediate threat, the need for adaptation will be less, and the eyes may be able to work together, and this ability will develop further and further.  A change of habit, and learning in general, is only possible when the situation is not critical for survival, and imperfect functioning is acceptable. Relaxation allows for the habits to change and for learning in general because it decreases the need for adaptations.


Every time you are learning to do things in a new way, there will be a transitional period during which the old way will be more efficient than the new way. For example, you have used a certain computer program as your text editor for years, and now you are switching to a new one. The new one may be better in every imaginable way, but since it is different, you will have to struggle for some time until you eventually become as productive and later even more productive than you were with the old program. The transitional period will be shorter if you make the change instantly and fully commit to using the new program. However, if you keep using the old program when you need to do something quickly, because you really need it, you may never complete the switch. Furthermore, you will be much more successful with the new program if you embrace the philosophy of the new program as if you have never seen a text editor before. Most people, however, will start learning the new program by finding ways to do things that they often did in the old program.

People who develop and sell computer software, as well as engineers in general, have to acknowledge this human tendency, if they want their products to sell. If they come up with something radically new, it will either result in complete success as was the case with Apple iPod, or in complete failure, as happens with most other projects.

Why is it that people are frustrated when a program takes forever to load? Why is it that people are annoyed when they install a new program and all buttons are in different places, and they cannot find anything in the menu? Most people use computers because they want to accomplish something: write a poem, edit a picture in Photoshop, check train schedule in the internet. They are preoccupied with action out of doing, rather than out of being, and their way of acting will be necessarily habitual. They will keep doing things for years the same old way, because it works. You know how people say that they are bad at computers because they cannot accomplish XYZ. The most successful computer users are young kids who are using their computer without any intent to accomplish something, it is just their way of being.

When a computer user is trying to accomplish something, the immediate need or desire to finish the task prevents him from seeing other possibilities. Learning is prevented by the need to accomplish. If you want to learn, you have to be fine with failing, even if you know you can succeed the old way. Now, if we are talking about a survival scenario such as a war, then it may be inappropriate to learn to shoot in a new way and better to rely on the established skills of shooting in the face of an immediate danger. A computer user may also have a survival situation if he is, for example, a flight dispatcher. Then he will naturally use his established skills to deal best with his immediate environment, sacrificing any chance for learning. Similarly, if you are undergoing vision therapy, but your environment strongly requires you to see as clearly as possible, you will probably rely on your established visual skills, and there may be little progress. Evaluate every task, situation, and environment that you encounter. Either classify it as critical and use your best abilities as of now, or classify it as non-critical, relax, stay present, and allow for learning. Choose wisely: sometimes it may be better to sacrifice learning.


If you are interested in the subject of software and frustrated users,  read this blog post by Joel Spolsky: Controlling your environment makes you happy This post is included in his excellent book "User Interface Design for Programmers". Even if you are not a programmer but merely an active computer user, you may enjoy reading this book. For example, this is one thing that I learned from that book. If you are using Windows, you are probably familiar with the Recycle Bin. In Windows 95 when there was something in the Recycle Bin, it looked messy. Even though it was meant to allow people to recover the files that they accidentally deleted, research has shown that most people emptied it on a regular basis, because they wanted their computer desktop to look neat and organized.


Coming back to the original discussion: this is the other side of the coin. Not forcing people to change their habits too much or to learn too much when they are trying to accomplish something allows them to relax a little bit. Then, once they relax, a little bit of learning may be possible. This is why, when you teach, say, how to dance salsa to somebody who has never danced before, it is essential to first create a comfortable and supportive environment so learning can take place, for otherwise they will focus very hard on looking their best in this embarrassing situation, and no learning will take place. Clearly, during the transitional period they will have to look like they don't know that they are doing, and people like to feel in control. On the other hand, if you are that person who is trying to learn some salsa, understand that this is probably not a survival situation, and without reframing it, simply let go of the need to be in control.

Visual experiences of 3d: modern dance class

These are my observations after today's modern dance class (Hawkins technique).

Overall, for watching modern dance it makes more difference whether you have stereopsis or not, as opposed to whether you have ballet. In other words, if you have never had stereopsis, you are not missing as much when watching ballet, as you are missing when watching modern dance. You are still missing a lot in both cases, as well as in case of theatre. There is even more difference with architecture and especially sculpture.

Two weeks ago, when my stereopsis was just making its first steps, I had a lot of difficulties in this spacious studio on Lexington Avenue. The studio has some style: it has large pictures on at least two walls, it has chandeliers, it has various other decorations on the walls and the ceiling. However, I recall how difficult it was for my stereovision there, particularly in relative darkness, since there were not many objects to see in 3d to support my stereovision, and the room fitted quite well into the 2d view.

This time it was much better. If you studied mathematics for a long time, you may have heard that there was a certain shift of perspective that took place in the XX-th century. Previously mathematicians focused on studying the properties of various objects: points, numbers, groups, fields, manifolds. Then the focus shifted to studying the transformations of various objects: functions, operators, morphisms. The properties of functions became more important than the objects themselves, since once you know all the ways how a certain space of points or objects can be transformed, it gives you a great deal of insight into what may be considered interesting or essentials properties of this space, while leaving out the uninteresting or accidental properties. (Of course, no such formal distinction can be made, since any function or operator is also a point in the appropriate functional space, and conversely every point or object x is a function on the space of all functions whose domain includes this point, via the natural duality x(f) = f(x). )

Quite similarly, every day I am seeing all those various objects. Sometimes some of those objects can be useful or, indeed, necessary for my survivial. Yet the vast majority of the objects that I am seeing are not important for me in themselves. Various objects come together to form one visual impression, in which every particular objects may be of little importance. However, as I am walking or simply moving my head, I see how my vision of all objects is transformed. The objects move in the direction opposite to the shift of the gaze and, because of the motion parallax, objects that are closer to me shift more in my visual field than those objects that are farther away from me. This shift of all the objects that I am seeing, this transformation of the objects in my visual field, gives me the feeling of being and moving in the space.

When I first acquired stereopsis, my attention was mostly focused on the three-dimensionality of individual objects, such as a tree with its leaves, an animal, or a person. When there were few objects with obvious three-dimensional features, such as in the studio on Lexington Avenue, it was difficult to maintain binocular vision, or when it was already established, was difficult to maintain good quality, strong binocular vision, because binocular vision was not really required. It hardly made any difference. However, now that I understand and feel, how movement is an essential part of binocular vision and of the experience of stereopsis, particularly after my time on a ship and later on the ferries to and from the Governor's island, I can sense volume even in an empty room if only I can notice how the room flows relative to my movement or to the movement of my head. This is, of course, not something that happens automatically, but rather I have to remind myself to notice this optic flow of the environment, as well as the motion parallax, and the more I am noticing it, the easier and smoother it becomes.

I already wrote about it in an earlier post: watching the optic flow is tremendously helpful for dance if you want, for example, to move your legs but to keep your head in one place in space. Then you simply see what you see and make sure that whatever you see is fixed, that there is no movement of the objects that you see in any direction, which would mean that your head is also fixed in space. Of course, once you feel it in the body, you can probably do whatever such movement you are trying to do with your eyes closed, but the technique I described should allow to learn the movement much faster than by other means. This is in agreement with my philosophy that stereopsis is a learning tool, and for humans this confers more advantages than any real-time aspects for catching the ball, with the possible exception for driving, flying a plane or a helicopter.

However, even when the movement is already in your body, binocular vision, more specifically the movement aspect of stereopsis - optic flow with the motion parallax, provides very valuable real-time input. This input can be used for better technique even as you are performing and not thinking about the technique. For example, yesterday I noticed that when you relevé, that is, when you lift your heels off the floor, the ceiling comes closer to you, even if it is very far. Yesterday was he first time in my life when I noticed it. How had I seen it prior to yesterday? Prior to yesterday I had certainly recognized the change in the visual field that happens when you life your heels off the floor and go on half-point, and then come back down. However, I had not interpreted this change as the ceiling coming closer to me or moving away from me. Since I lacked such a natural and obvious interpretation, the changes appeared mostly random. Of course, when something appears random and you cannot conceptualize what you see, then you can not notice anything. Imagine someone showing you a computer sceen with many patches of random colors, generated entirely at random, without any visible pattern. Do you notice anything? Will you able to recall anything of what you see? Probably, not. Of course, you can consciously look at the points in the four corners of the monitor, and memorize their color in the hope that you will later relate it to the big picture, and I had often tried to "notice" things in this way, but this approach takes a lot of work, and the chance of success is small. This was pretty much how I was learning to drive: I was looking at what seemed like a random picture, not very correlated with what I was doing with the steering wheel or with other control, and I was trying to find such patterns, such as where on the windshield glass should I see a car on my left to make sure I pass it safely withe enough distance between us, or where on my windshield glass should I see the sidewalk to make sure that I am ready to stop and my distance to it is adequate. In this context "where" means "how many inches from the rightmost end of the windshield glass", and make no mistake, I really learned to use such cues.

Going back to the topic of dance, I found the optic flow and the motion parallax very useful for turning. Even though people say that you need to spot to not get dizzy, in a sense, you first need to be able to turn and get dizzy in a certain way, that is, get dizzy because you see how things are moving around you in a circle, with motion parallax. That is, spotting only makes sense after you engage with the environment in a certain way. Figure skaters, for example, do not spot, but they see the environment as they are turning, and they decide when they will exit and where the will move after the turn.

To be fair, I am not quite sure if the optic flow and the motion parallax are intrinsically helpful for turning, or if this merely engages the visual system, which in turn coordinates the whole body. Similarly, when I was writing my older post titled "up, down, and other directions", I was not sure if it was the actual stereovision that was giving me the direct feelings of up and down, perhaps via a greater sensory integration with the vestibular system, or if it was simply a matter of bringing both sides of the visual system and both sides of the brain into agreement or harmony, which then allowed me to do all kinds of things.


However, from an emotional point of view, seeing the optic flow of the environment and the motion parallax are important, since they give a feeling of being in the space, a feeling of being in the world, a feeling of engagement. This is, therefore, as important for dance as for anything else, theatre, public speaking, cooking, you name it.

I am abandoned in the world ... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I do not think that this being or not being in the world is only a function of binocular vision. This is probably more a function of being present. If, for example, you have never danced, or sang in public, or played table tennis, and then you decide to try, you may feel awkward, very uncomfortable, embarrassed. You will feel detached from your body, you will almost not want to be responsible for your body at that moment. In some subtle sense this feeling is similar to the experience of not having stereopsis: you are hear, and everything else is over there, in this picture. Conversely, if you can invert this feeling to its opposite, to the feeling of being engaged, then this is what stereopsis can give you, a feeling of being in the world. 

I guess that even people with normal vision have stronger stereoacuity, color perception, sound perception, when they are present and engaged with the environment. This is because when we are not present, when we want to hide, to be somewhere else, we are actively intending to be out-of-the-world, and this may result in suppressing some depth perception, some color perception, or even closing one's eyes. 

Next time when you feel like you want to be somewhere else, whether it is a difficult dance class, an unpleasant conversation with your manager, sorting things out in your relationship, an argument with a police officer, think about what you are doing for yourself. Unless you are being tortured and you know you are going to die in the end of the torture anyway, in which case it is understandable that you want to die underfocused instead of dying with full awareness, including the awareness of suffering, unless this is what is happening to you, think, what is it that you are doing for yourself. You are taking yourself out of an experience. Even if you are not willing to make the choice to live with full awareness and authenticity, think what it is that you are doing for your brain. You are teaching your brain this mode, of not-being-here. You are disconnecting all those nervous circuits that integrate the sensory information and provide you with the feeling of being here and now. This involves vision with depth and color and motion perception, this involves hearing, and all other senses, as well as perceiving body language, perceiving the emotions, and more, and more, and more. If there is no immediate danger, we want to have a better living experience, just as Peter says: thriving, not surviving. 

Lessons from binocular summation

Binocular summation is a very useful feature of binocular vision. With two eyes the threshold for noticing a stimulus is much lower than with one eye. As I walk down the street, I notice birds, flies, mice or insects on the sidewalk. I sense the movement, and I recognize that my threshold for detection is now unusually low. I notice movement, and I notice how subtle it is. I watch dance and I see subtle movements, and I recognize them as subtle; I see that I was not able to notice such subtleties in the past. It may, of course, be that my visual system has been educated, and those skills may still persist with one eye closed - not sure.

What makes a subtle movement stand out is that both eyes receive coherent inputs. I also suspects that every time I notice a subtle movement and the object that is moving is small, such as a dust particle, my eyes have to be sufficiently aligned. Conversely, when the inputs from both eyes are too different as is common because of strabismus, this results in confusion, and a general feeling of discomfort.

Recall that we can interpret binocular vision as a sensory integration of the inputs from both eyes, at least I propose this approach. Here is a quote that triggered my thinking of how we can apply it to other areas:

For example, winking when you talk to someone adds extra weight to your message, as does touching them. However, combining both behaviours has a synergistic effect that makes you stand out. It seems this is a key factor on how to stage presence.

(Source: link )

I suspect this is the reason why it may feel so uncomfortable and unsettling when somebody is saying one thing, but the body language or the eyes say the other. We perceive disagreement between the senses, and the responses are probably the same as with the vision. One possibility is suppression: we are only listening to what the person is saying, with an uneasy.  feeling, but generally ignoring the body language that does not match the words. This is analogous to monovision. Another possibility is ambiocular vision. Both sensory inputs can be perceived and interpreted independently, despite the contradiction. This should be easier for someone whose senses are not very integrated. I guess that people in certain occupations such as work in police or in CIA or another similar organizations can benefit from a certain lack of integration of senses, perhaps even certain autistic traits.

When different senses are in agreement, the effect is similar to binocular summation. The threshold is naturally lower, so if you want to reach people, it is advisable to use multiple senses. If what you say is in agreement with your eyes or with your body language, then you will be relying on the audiovisual integration of your listeners to reach them more effectively. When dance and music are in agreement, the whole is greater than the sum; but if there is disagreement, this results in confusion and partial suppression of what you see or of what you hear, or both. This is why it is easier to clap on the beat of the music by yourself than together with the people who are clapping off beat.

This is why if you eat too much garlic in certain social situations, this can be a problem. The people you are meeting with will have a difficult time integrating their various sensory impressions of your person. Even if they understand that this garlic smell is just an accident and does not characterize you as a person, they will still have to suppress the sense of smell, which will weaken the impression from the other senses. Furthermore, if you do not eat garlic, and leave an overall good impression, they are likely to complete your sensory image by attaching it to an appropriate pleasant smell that they happen to come across after meeting you.

Visual experiences of 3d: Central Park

I was in the Central Park shortly after my stereopsis had just appeared, on the 30th and the 31st of July. I recall a fountain that took a lot of space, more than usually, both in terms of height and in terms of covering the ground. Fountains in general are much more interesting with stereopsis because they often involve complicated configurations of streams of water, and the appreciating of the whole downward movement of the water in the fountain also came to me with stereopsis.  I recall street lamps hanging above the sidewalk, even though the stands were standing on the side, not on the path. I had always known that the stands of the streetlamps were not on the sidewalk, but had failed to notice that the actual lamps were actually above the sidewalk that they were supposed to lighten. It actually makes sense from an engineering point of view.

Yesterday I went for another walk. I took the subway to Columbus Circle, and even though I had seen it with stereopsis, was impressed by the open space and how subway arrives right in the middle and under the ground level. Just like I previously explained about gravity and the directions "up" and "down", I never really felt that subway was underground, I only understood it.  This is, in spite of the fact that St. Petersburg has a very deep subway - I guess, it is difficult to construct tunnels in a swamp.

From Columbus Circle I went towards the Lincoln Center. It is indeed quite impressive, much more than I had thought during the previous visits. It is interesting how the size of the buildings matches with what I know is inside. You can look at it and imagine what the space inside feels like. Previously I did not have such a feeling of space. For example, I remember many years ago there was a discussion of how high was the ceiling in some apartment. I don't remember if it was our apartment or not, and I don't remember the discussion either. What I do remember is how I wondered if the height of the ceiling made any difference, except if you had very tall people coming to visit you.

Then I went to the park. I think that the stereopsis for distant periphery and generally large objects had already been established well enough, so that now those objects started to form surfaces and configurations. I was no longer just seeing in 3d that one object was on top of another, or that there was space under a bridge, or that a streetlamp was hanging above the road, but this information was sometimes coming together to create an awareness of a more complex landscape, with a deeper understanding of the spatial relationships between the parts involved. It could be comparing to studying any discipline, to any learning: at first you see isolated relationships, then those come more and more together to form a big picture. Here "big picture" is not just peripheral vision.

I cannot quite explain the feeling. Imagine that you are visiting a foreign country, but you do not know the language. You see a sign over a door, but you do not know what it means. However, if you know that this sign means "coffee", then seeing this sign can and often bring to your mind whatever it is that you associate with coffee - taste, smell, childhood memories. Even if you do not start thinking specifically about coffee with your conscious mind, there can still be an awareness that tells you: you remember the smell and the taste of coffee, even though you are not actively recalling this smell and this taste at the moment.

I think that with vision we see different parts of land filled with different objects, such as a park filled with trees, or a city filled with buildings, and we sense, we extrapolate that the space around those trees or buildings carries some of the same properties. Then when we physically are in this space between the trees or between the buildings, we feel that we come in touch with something. So this is why being in a room can feel very different from being in the forest, which can feel very different from being in a cathedral, which can feel very different from being in a parking lot. I had never really felt this difference as acutely as during the last few weeks. I had probably started to get this feeling of space a few days before my vision transformed.

Even though everything is now so interesting, I still have to make an effort to take it in. I still have to make an effort to look around, to see what's in front of my eyes, just as I have to make an effort to walk, because, technically speaking, walking requires some amount of effort. Fortunately, I have taught myself that walking is important, so I am spending energy on it without further questions. That is, I do not have to push myself to walk or make a conscious will; however, I do have to consciously see things in front of my eyes, even though it may take a comparable amount of energy or of mental energy. This analogy is not quite valid; walking is physical, while looking is mental. However, I hope to learn to see things, hear things, and so on, without such a significant conscious effort.

When years ago I first heard about these ideas of staying present, of not wasting your life reflecting on past joys or sorrows, I couldn't understand it. It then seemed to me that life consisted exactly in joys and sorrows, and that focusing on them was the very manifestation of being alive. However, I am no quite sure any more, whether reflecting on past experiences can be more authentic or can make you feel more alive than new experience. I mean, of course, reflecting with attachment. I also do not want to include situations when you are in too much pain, physically or otherwise, and have no intention of staying present or alive.

The advantages of binocular vision for dance

It is not entirely clear, which of the advantages requires functioning binocular, and which will be present with sufficient binocular experience in the past or after having studied dance in the past with the benefit of binocular vision. Also, it might be argued that some of the advantages I am writing about are not really advantages of binocular vision and that the changes that I observed are simply a natural progress. I am ready to dismiss this argument. People do not become better dancers overnight, and people do not become better learners of dance overnight, yet this is exactly what happened.

1. I already wrote about this one. Binocular vision creates an immediate sense of gravity, of the directions "up" and "down".

This means that after I acquired binocular vision, it came with an immediate sensation of what is "up" and what is "down", as I already described in a previous post "up, down, and other directions". I was taking a modern dance class on Saturday, the 30th of July, and was able to observe how, as the binocular vision got stronger, and then weaker, the same happened with the sensation of gravity. The sensation of gravity allows you to stand on one leg and feel how the weight is going directly down, through the leg. The sensation of gravity allows you to do a hand stand and feel how the weight of the body is going directly down through the arms. When you bend forward from your hips, in any style of dance, yoga, or any other discipline, the sensation of gravity allows you to feel your legs as vertical possible, with weight going down through your legs, so your pelvis is only moving back as much as necessary.

Surely, such awareness requires training. However, the level of immediacy of this awareness is so strong, it appeared so suddenly, and then got weaker and stronger at the same time as the stereo perception got respectively weaker and stronger, that I have to conclude that it is immediately linked to binocular vision, perhaps, more specifically to stereopsis. What surprizes me the most is that the sense of gravity is as clear with the eyes closed as with the eyes open.

A natural assumption would be that the vestibular system was contradicting the input from the visual system and was suppressed, but now they are harmonizing. However, once again, this contradicts my direct experience. First of all, I had a glimpse of this verticality a little before acquiring stereopsis - if I am correct, on Wednesday, July the 27th. One of the assistants in the class told me to, perhaps go directly down in plie, or do something else directly down or directly up, I don't remember. However, as she said that, she suggested to imagine a vertical string or thread in the air. She showed how the thread would go, and I saw it, indeed, going vertically, through the never. I had never had such a clear image of verticality in my life. The vertical line, or thread, or string that I saw, was not parallel to anything, not parallel to the wall, not perpendicular to the floor. Maybe it was, but I did not notice it. It was just going directly up and directly down. Was it possible that my vestibular system had already changed that much even before I actually acquired stereopsis? Is imagining a vertical string a function of the binocular system at all?




2. This one is even more amazing. Binocular vision creates three-dimensional body awareness.

This means that now I can feel, for example, the shape of my pelvis more directly, in a way, that was not previously accessible to me. This is true even when I close my eyes. I can perceive its shape and position in three dimensions directly, and yes, I can create pulsations in my visual cortex just by concentrating on the shape of my pelvis and its location and movement in space. (To be fair, right now I can do almost anything, as long as I do it with awareness and not automatically, and still create pulsations in my visual cortex.)

I can initiate movement in ways that were not accessible to me before. In fact, I feel that my flexibility is increasing. I thought I had limited flexibility in a number of places; however, now it seems that I was not able to direct my body precisely enough. This is why flexibility did not develop, because I introduced some random variations, and different muscles and ligaments were stretched, non-uniformly on the left and on the right.

It has, of course, nothing to do with seeing per se. However, it has to do with being able to imagine a three-dimensional shape. You know, I had such a peculiar feeling in my first couple of days with stereopsis, that I was not able to imagine anything, nor to recall anything. In fact, every time I was able to imagine a plant separated in space, I felt how my binocular vision improved from this act of imagination. Remembering was difficult, particularly on Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th of July. As I already wrote, I learned to consciously create three-dimensional faces out of two-dimensional memories, but only for people I knew well. Mostly, it didn't work, or I could come out of stereopsis and imagine things on the left eye, or on the right eye, or across both eyes. In the spirit of Dr. Bates, I assume that to imagine a 3d-image is the same as to see a 3d-image, which is the same as to remember a 3d-image. All three tasks are equally difficult or equally easy, and require the same state of mind. This state of mind is probably what Dr. Frederick Brock (1899-1971) called "binocular posture". 

 Continuing with body awareness, my body awareness seems to increase very quickly from watching other people. That is, from sensing how other people's bodies move in three dimensions, I can feel it so much better for myself. Make no mistake: I studied various styles of dance and other disciplines for some years, and I studied anatomy and I have seen pictures with muscles and joints and thought about how they function. My understanding improved in a matter of days so much, and then after several more days it grew even further. I would say that such changes do not happen so quickly, even after years of work.



I am not sure what to say about people who have been blind from birth and somehow learned to dance or to do yoga. Are they capable of the same or better level of body awareness? How would they learn without vision, which is always a major tool for learning any movement discipline? I don't know. 




3. Just like with exploring the city, just like with learning the body language of the society where you are growing up, stereopsis is a learning tool.

I couldn't believe it when I realized, again in a dance class, how much more information I was getting. I also had to work less to get this information. Just like with other things, I could replace scanning for information by simply observing and taking in all the details. Perhaps, the observational skill can be learned without acquiring stereopsis. However, and it has to do with the body awareness advantage mentioned above, when you are learning dance, the 3d information you are receiving from observation is directly applicable. You are seeing a move in three dimensions and, with appropriate experience and training, you can directly project what you are seeing on your body. Of course, some people do it better, others do it worse, but now I can do it with the whole three-dimensional shape. I guess, if I continue to develop this ability along the Eyebody principles, I should learn to take in the mood or the artistic or spiritual qualities simultaneously with the technical details, which I cannot always do right now.

When I became aware of this faster learning, I did think about how unfair the world was. I recalled all those little girls who picked things up on the fly, and how I was spending hours looking at photographs at different angles, trying to understand a movement, and having no clue there there was a better way. However, this is not really a concern not that I have acquired binocular vision that already works quite well. What really scares me is this: what if I did not work on my vision? I am scared to think that the disadvantage of not having and having never had binocular vision cannot really be overcome by hard work - in dance, in martial arts, in basketball... I know that having no legs cannot be overcome either, but the thing is, I did not really know that I had some can of disadvantage that was inherent in the way my brain functioned. I did not realize why certain things were more difficult for me than for others, and I did not even realize the fact that those things were more difficult for me. This is what scares me - this limitation that was like an invisible wall in front of me, although, I guess, it may be much more depressing to live and know that you have a disability.


Stereopsis is helpful not just for learning by watching a teacher. You are watching yourself in the mirror, and you will see so much more with stereopsis and 3d-body awareness. I don't know if this is stereopsis or something in the brain that is connected with stereopsis or with appropriate centers in the visual cortex. However, I am absolutely certain the change that happened in me, in my brain, is fundamental, and is incomparable to changes that happen after hard work. This change is of a different kind. 


Stereopsis helps for learning dance not just when you are watching the mirror. It helps to watch other dancers, even as you are dancing. It takes a smart visual system to figure out your movement, figure out their movement, and allow you to perceive their movement as you are moving. Furthermore, with 3d-body awareness there is more attention left since movements in 3d are perceived directly, they are almost atomic. It takes much more mental space to represent a movement with two-dimensional thinking. I guess, to do a movement you really have to visualize it, consciously or not, and it is easier to connect to one three-dimensional image, static or in motion, than to multiple two-dimensional images.


Of course, with stereopsis you are learning more from watching dance, and you are enjoying it more, too. Particularly when the tempo is fast, you can see so much more. 


I even wanted to say that with stereopsis you are more likely to get interested in dance, because it is more beautiful in 3d, but this is simply not true. With stereopsis everything is more beautiful or, of course, uglier. So many other things to get interested in, other than dance. For example, trees or basketball...


4. Certain elements of technique are directly based on stereopsis. Have you seen thirty-two fouettés? Think about spotting for turns in dance. People think that the spotting technique is to prevent dizziness. Surely, it is much easier to get dizzy with than without binocular vision. However, spotting is clearly based on the eye-body patterns associated with binocular fixation. Once again think about a hunting owl. The owl fixes its eyes on a mouse, and this act of focusing, of fixation, brings a change in the entire body. The whole being of the owl gets directed towards the mouse in no time because of the organizing power of the binocular focus. The changes that vision brings in our body are beyond our consciousness. I do not think that one really can break down and reproduce the movements that are naturally arising as a consequence of looking somewhere with interest. You go where you look.