People with glasses... What do you ACTUALLY see?

Woodsman

The Living Force
I just got back from a live music event at a small theater. I'd forgotten to bring my glasses with me.

I'm near-sighted, (that is, objects up close are in sharp focus, but things far away get fuzzy. I can't drive safely without glasses because road signs are unreadable.)

Normally, I don't pay much attention to the fuzziness of things. I just live with it. (I tend not to bother with glasses). But as I found myself staring at people on stage for prolonged periods, (lots of sitting with guitars on stools), I remembered an odd question which I'd never yet solved to my satisfaction.

People were fuzzy, yes, but it's an odd kind of fuzzy.

When I pay close attention to a blurred visual, such as when I look at the title of a book from across a room, I see multiple groupings of the letters making up the title, all gathered together, overlapping but not lined up, and the weird thing is that they are all actually in focus, all in varying degrees of opaque or transparency, more or less "there", but all have cleanly defined edges. The whole image just seems fuzzy because there's too many of them all bunched up and overlapping.

Closing one or the other eye doesn't change this or subtract any of the "copies".

I researched a bit about optics, and didn't come across anything which explained this. When a lens goes out of focus, you just get a uniform fuzz. What I experience is very close to that, but when I focus my attention on the fuzz, this odd grouping of in-focus copies becomes apparent.

I asked the woman next to me about this in the theater, (also a glasses wearer), and she didn't know what I was talking about at first, but then said, "Hold on... Yes. I think I see what you mean."

Does anybody else experience this?
 
I think I know what you mean. But I must ask, are you sure you aren't squinting? I find when I stopped wearing my prescription, I would focus and sort of hold my eye lids closed enough to filter some of the visual noise with my eye lashes. This would help define some of the blurred images ahead of me. After a while my wife kept pointing out that I was squinting, so, I would practice trying to gain focus without squinting. Interestingly, over time, I found when ever I would relent to wearing my prescription again, that my glasses would strain my eyes. I no longer wear them as a result.
 
Woodsman said:
...
I'm near-sighted, (that is, objects up close are in sharp focus, but things far away get fuzzy. I can't drive safely without glasses because road signs are unreadable.)

...

When I pay close attention to a blurred visual, such as when I look at the title of a book from across a room, I see multiple groupings of the letters making up the title, all gathered together, overlapping but not lined up, and the weird thing is that they are all actually in focus, ...
Closing one or the other eye doesn't change this or subtract any of the "copies".

... grouping of in-focus copies becomes apparent.
...

Does anybody else experience this?
That is my experience too. First noticed when driving - the writing on road signs ahead were in stereo when not wearing glasses.
 
Hi Woodsman,

I wonder if you're describing astigmatism. I'm shortsighted with astigmatism and without glasses I get a sort of double blurring effect. Some days it's quite bad. I've noticed when I do some very active exercise my eyesight is better as in everything is sharper. Probably extra blood circulating to the optic nerve, just my opinion though.
 
Things are just blurry for me... can't really make out the details of the blur.

I am short sighted... i.e. can see things which are close but not far.
 
luke wilson said:
I am short sighted... i.e. can see things which are close but not far.

My dear Luke, I think you mean you're near sighted. ;)

Hope all is well.
 
zin said:
I think I know what you mean. But I must ask, are you sure you aren't squinting? I find when I stopped wearing my prescription, I would focus and sort of hold my eye lids closed enough to filter some of the visual noise with my eye lashes. This would help define some of the blurred images ahead of me. After a while my wife kept pointing out that I was squinting, so, I would practice trying to gain focus without squinting. Interestingly, over time, I found when ever I would relent to wearing my prescription again, that my glasses would strain my eyes. I no longer wear them as a result.

It happens when I'm not squinting; eyes fully open and relaxed.

-I know what you mean about glasses causing strain. I only ever bring mine out when I'm driving or going to see a film or something like that. They pull the world into amazing, sharp focus, but I would sometimes get a vague strain headache as a result. I just don't like 'em.

Interestingly, I don't even register that my vision is blurry most of the time. -I live in a small town and I know every meter of it and all its people, so navigation and facial recognition are barely impaired at all; my brain has built for itself all kinds of tricks for recognizing things based on incomplete information. Only when I'm walking around in an unfamiliar location and I'm needing to read more signage and bus maps and such do I find myself thinking, "Damn! My vision is pretty bad!"


Lorraine said:
Hi Woodsman,

I wonder if you're describing astigmatism. I'm shortsighted with astigmatism and without glasses I get a sort of double blurring effect. Some days it's quite bad. I've noticed when I do some very active exercise my eyesight is better as in everything is sharper. Probably extra blood circulating to the optic nerve, just my opinion though.

I'd not considered this before, so I did a bit of google searching to clarify what astigmatism is.

A person's eye is naturally shaped like a sphere. Under normal circumstances, when light enters the eye, it refracts, or bends evenly, creating a clear view of the object. However, the eye of a person with astigmatism is shaped more like a football or the back of a spoon. For this person, when light enters the eye it is refracted more in one direction than the other, allowing only part of the object to be in focus at one time. Objects at any distance can appear blurry and wavy.

eye_health_astigmatism_eyes_astigmatism2.jpg

That sounds like a possibility, especially with what the graphic shows.

Except it doesn't quite line up. My eye doctor never mentioned anything about astigmatism, and it's apparently a standard and easy test. Also, images are multiples, not warped or wavy. Next time I visit the optometrist I'll make a point of asking.

I was thinking about light as it traverses something like a bottle; you'll get these splotches of sunlight, some distorted and other bits more in focus. Perhaps it's like there are sections of my eye's lens which are in focus for several small regions. That might explain it.
 
I have just done some experimenting and noticed something similar Woodsman. I took my glasses off, and closed my left eye (which sees very well and only has a slight lens correction in my glasses), so that I was only looking with my right eye. I looked at the title of a book three feet away and can notice the letters appearing three times, none in focus. If I squint, I can make them in focus, while still seeing three sets of letters. One set is much darker, while the other two are fainter. Personally I like what optical correction with glasses can do, and don't want to try going "natural" and letting my eyes try to improve their vision without the technological help of the lenses from the optometrist.
 
sitting said:
luke wilson said:
I am short sighted... i.e. can see things which are close but not far.

My dear Luke, I think you mean you're near sighted. ;)

Myopia aka near sighted, is sometimes called short sighted. So you are both correct! The term short sighted comes from the fact that the eye has grown too long, and the light entering the eye falls short of reaching the retina for clear vision.
 
Has anyone tried pinhole glasses to strengthen the muscles of the eyes? Speaking for myself they do work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_glasses
 
Hmm I am near-sighted as well...just a thought but what if the fuzziness is your brain compensating for seeing doubles, triples, etc.? Just tried viewing objects at a distance without my glasses and I guess my eyes do the same thing. Faint repeats of the central object to the sides. Now I say this but then shortly after I found the below definition which makes sense as well.

_http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/myopia.htm

All about vision said:
Myopia occurs when the eyeball is too long, relative to the focusing power of the cornea and lens of the eye. This causes light rays to focus at a point in front of the retina, rather than directly on its surface.

I have worn glasses since middle school and remember an interesting explanation given to me from my optometrist at the time. He explained that sometimes nearsighted individuals could not see well when objects are at a distance but often times their view or focus of objects close to their face can be similar to having a magnifying glass. Which is more than what a person with 20/20 would experience. That, is what i've noticed more often than not and it does come in handy at times. Osit, maybe people with 20/20 can do the same.

Interesting observation nonetheless.
 
trendsetter37 said:
Hmm I am near-sighted as well...just a thought but what if the fuzziness is your brain compensating for seeing doubles, triples, etc.? Just tried viewing objects at a distance without my glasses and I guess my eyes do the same thing. Faint repeats of the central object to the sides. Now I say this but then shortly after I found the below definition which makes sense as well.

_http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/myopia.htm

All about vision said:
Myopia occurs when the eyeball is too long, relative to the focusing power of the cornea and lens of the eye. This causes light rays to focus at a point in front of the retina, rather than directly on its surface.

I have worn glasses since middle school and remember an interesting explanation given to me from my optometrist at the time. He explained that sometimes nearsighted individuals could not see well when objects are at a distance but often times their view or focus of objects close to their face can be similar to having a magnifying glass. Which is more than what a person with 20/20 would experience. That, is what i've noticed more often than not and it does come in handy at times. Osit, maybe people with 20/20 can do the same.

Interesting observation nonetheless.

An interesting thread, and I agree with all the contributions, being myopic all my life.
I have noticed the built-in magnification effect, often quite handy when doing close work, but not so much now that I am retired.
As for the effect of seeing multiple images, I have also noted that effect, and concluded that it is because the retina consists of cells, each of which has its own focus point, and the brain learns to combine them in a specific way, so that you don't see the multiple images.
It's programming of a high order, one of the first ones you get.
I have found that if you take one of those vehicle magnetic strips with images on them (like a learner plate) they have rows of small holes in them. If you look at an object through that (without your spectacles), you can often resolve the image, perhaps not perfectly, but better than if you were not looking through the perforations.
 
MusicMan said:
I have found that if you take one of those vehicle magnetic strips with images on them (like a learner plate) they have rows of small holes in them. If you look at an object through that (without your spectacles), you can often resolve the image, perhaps not perfectly, but better than if you were not looking through the perforations.

Now that is cool! It almost sounds like you are using the diffraction patterns of light travelling through the small hole to resolve the blurry or repetitive multiple image beyond it ( slit experiment ). In effect performing the purpose of what refraction through a lens may do.
 
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