23 March 2009

Insight into previous post

So, I've been thinking quite a bit about the question raised in my previous post, and I want to touch on something I learned a couple of years ago but only remembered recently.

Q: Is it possible to open a book and not see the words?

A: Certainly. To do so, you must either look through the book or use your peripheral vision.

Both of these actions relax the eyes and prevent you from reading the words. Are you familiar with those 4-D Magic Eye Puzzle books (or whatever they're called)? You use the same technique here as you do to see the pictures. People usually suggest to cross your eyes, but this is not the best way, since it has the potential to strain your eyes. Relaxing the eyes is the better technique.

Is this useful?

IMO, it is incredibly useful to be able to relax the eyes. In fact, this state should be the natural one. For some people, myself included, it is not. Maybe that's why I wear glasses...

We all know what peripheral vision is, but how can this come in handy? One way to think of it is to hold more than one object is your field of vision at once. I'm choosing not to say the word `focus' here, because this act is really the opposite of concentration. One technique is to imagine a line connecting the two objects and observe the entire line at once. For three objects, you can imagine a triangle instead (or still a line if the objects are colinear). Another technique is to not look directly at something before you pick it up.

After all, what would a blind person do?

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