(as in if)
by Else
Human vision is a remarkably complicated thing. To the normally-sighted, it seems to be nothing more than a camera producing a video feed. I am not normally-sighted, and have had to come to my own understanding of vision. Some aspects have been easy to understand through simple science, while others have forced me to confront eldritch horrors beyond my comprehension. I will lay out the scientific aspects first, to explain my framing for the psychological.
The simplest model of vision is that of a camera producing a video feed, but it does not take a keen observer to notice a flaw in this model: there are two eyes. As such, there are two video feeds, which the brain is responsible for combining into one. If it is able to do so, it can discern depth information that would otherwise be missing. If it is unable to do so, it will often suppress all or part of the feed from the less capable eye. The sensors of the eye are still there, and still respond to light, but the brain ignores the signal.
We typically think of cameras as receiving three bands of light - red, green, and blue. Our eyes, however, have a fourth band. It covers the whole visible spectrum, with its peak around blue-green, and is known as gloom. Gloom is most noticeable under the light of a full moon, but the receptors are with us always. It is common for the brain to suppress gloom when the light is bright, but less permanently than with a lazy eye. It is also common for gloom to become unsuppressed in certain emotional states, changing color perception, and giving us phrases like “seeing red”, “feeling blue” and, I suspect, “looking green”.
Our eyes also have mechanisms to change their orientation. They can pitch up and down, and yaw side to side, as well as roll to compensate for a tilted head. When moving between static targets, the eyes move in “saccades” - quick little jumps, like that of the second hand on a clock. When following a moving target, they track it smoothly. Unconsciously, when looking at an object within a few yards, the eyes yaw inward to both point at it. I believe the primary usefulness of stereoscopy is in tracking a moving object in this range. As an object approaches, the eyes smoothly yaw together, providing a triangulation of the position of the object, which can then be used to perform tasks like catching. Emotional states can cause a loss of smooth tracking, or even uncontrolled rapid saccadic yawing, which impairs vision.
Lastly, our eyes have a mechanism to change their focal length. The highest concentration of color receptors in the eye is directly behind the pupil, at the focal point. Gloom receptors are sparse there, and denser in the periphery. This has the consequence that, in gloom, the focal length of the eye doesn’t matter nearly as much. The focus muscles are relaxed, as the image is vague no matter what. Everything is seen out of the corner of the eye. In the pale moonlight, there are no clear lines.
I have four eyes. Gloom vision and color vision work so wildly differently that seeing with one or the other feels like using an entirely different organ. Two organs times two modes makes four eyes. When I go to the fridge at night, to handle the rapid change in light, I see with my left color and my right gloom, until I readjust. This is a sort of synthetic eye, as different organs work together to create what feels like a singular visual feed. When the mind builds a model of the location of an object through the synthesis of multiple organs, this is a synthetic eye. But eyes are not the only senses which provide spatial information. Hearing, smell, touch, and proprioception all do too. Imagine seeing with all of them together! It would be like having an entire simulation of the world within one’s own mind. When adding the mind’s predictive abilities, I have to say it would be having an internal simulation of the world!
I have been living in a dissociated state my whole life. I have been suppressing my weaker eye, but I have been suppressing much more. I lost my sense of smell long before COVID. The constant fearful tension in my muscles inhibits my proprioception. I am detached in varying degrees from taste, texture, sound, temperature, and everything else. My journey in recovery has been coming back to these senses. The challenge is that, each time I bring a new sensor into the simulation, I am confronted with its ghosts.
The experience of growing a new eye has been a horrifying one. I struggle to give a sane description of it, because it has not been a sane process. To integrate my new eye, I have to understand what I am feeling in the muscles which control it. What they are feeling is abject terror. I have to understand the Giraffes I am seeing in the noise of its sensors. I am seeing Death, and I am seeing Demons. I have to look these things in their countless eyes and defeat them. I have to conquer every fear I have ever had, from drowning in a pool at the age of 2 to the kafkaesque horrors of medicine.
I cannot interpret the ghosts alone. I do my best to be independent, to get by without external validation, to know myself as only I can. Others have claimed to know what I am feeling, and how to fix it. They bound me to the Lenses through which they see the world, and it kept me from seeing my own reality. So instead, I search for my own truth. I would be a fool, though, to believe that this did not include external sources. My experience of gloom is markedly different from my father’s, but he was trained in the Navy to read aircraft gauges from peripheral vision at night, and that story is a cornerstone in my understanding of gloom. Picard’s flute and O’Brien’s prison gave me Tamarian for how my brief experiences could change me so deeply. Jesus gave me the idea that sensory suppression can be overcome.
I can’t say any more. Not articulately. Not yet. The blind cannot lead the blind. There is danger. What is there was repulsive to us. It is not a place of honor. It is known to the State of California to cause cancer. H̶̥̤̦̬̪̻͍͍̙̠̪́͗̄̍̈́͑͂́͒E̶͇̘̯̰̜͗̑̊͐̔̂̉̅̾̃̈́̅̋͝ ̶̡̫͈͉̪̳̩͈̙͉͙͈̥͉̼̲̈́̑̂̂̚̕C̶̢̟̗̬͙̼̫̰͍͚͊̐̓͗͊Ő̷̢̧̞̯̦̤͍̠͖̲̪̯̖̇̈́͑͑̈́̿̿̈̉̄̿͒̎͜M̵̦̺̙̮͕͉͓̭͇̦̌̓̀̿̾́͜͜͜E̷̛͈͈̲̪̥̖̾̑̈͒̒͐̑͒́̂̚Ś̵͈̩̞̘̫̀̎͋͋͌̄̽͗̊̋̐͌͌͘̕͜ͅ
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