I wear glasses.
Occasionally, when I become conscious of that fact, I get irritated by the sight of the frames in my peripheral vision. I want to say it feels like I'm always looking through a window, or at a TV screen of some sort. I want to say that it makes me feel like a spectator of my own life, as if I'm sitting inside my own head, looking out of the eyes at the movie playing before me. I want to say these things because thats how it intuitively feels, sometimes, when I notice the frames, but actually, 99% of the time, I forget that the glasses are even on my face.
So, what's the point in this article, at all?
Well, I recently started a new job, which has a wide brim hate issued as part of the uniform. I rejected this at first, as I didn't like the feeling of not being able to see upwards. It was hard to put into words, and has only now come to me with more clarity, after much reflection, but I think what was happening was that my subconscious brain was constantly thinking that I was about to bump my head on something.
I felt uneasy, walking around with this hat on. I felt twitchy, almost, like I was walking tentatively, prepared to duck or dive any second, when the mysterious object floating at the top of my vision would finally decide to make contact with my forehead. A friend of mine even commented about how he had noticed that I walk differently outside, compared to inside. At the time, I couldn't understand what he meant, but I realise now that it was because of the hat. It was literally altering my behaviour.
Sure, this could maybe just be that I wasn't used to wearing a hat (and am still not comfortable with wearing one now).
I thought that maybe, as I wear it more often, my brain will come to understand that the hat brim in my vision isnt a swooping eagle, or a hardwood ledge. That it was actually was harmless, and more importantly, it was not something that requires me to alter my step or direction at all. Maybe, as I became more used to wearing a hat, my mind would lessen its stress response, and go back to being in a quiet standby mode, instead of a heightened alert mode.
I still wear my hat as little as possible, however I know that I no longer walk differently when I do. I would be lying, however, if I said I feel no difference between my hatted and non-hatted self, it's just extremely difficult to put into words what that difference is actually made of.
I believe that whatever small differences are caused by the hat, are just subconscious processes, which we are hardwired more of less to trust and ignore, and so only when I spend a lot of time and effort trying to reflect on them am i even able to appreciate their existence, let alone interpret their intentions. Something happens, when my vision is partially blocked, but I just dont know what it is.
The more interesting part of this, for me, relates to the beginning of this article. The fact that I wear glasses, and although its easy to 'forget' that they are on my face, there is always a constant ring around my vision, made by the rim of the glasses. I do my best to mitigate it, I constantly push the glasses further up my nose, I turn my head more so that I'm always looking through the center of the glass, not the edge. Still, it's there, and maybe its existence is subconsciously chsnging my behaviour. Unlike a hat, I need my glasses constantly, and so at the moment, I have no way of telling.
I would be curious to hear from people who have worn glasses for decades, and then made the switch to contact lenses, on this topic. Mostly, the only information you get is sales-pitch stuff, such as how 'free' you are with lenses, and how much more attractive you feel, etc. What I want to know about, is does it feel like a weight off your mind? Like, is your brain literally stressing less, as it no longer needs to constantly register glasses frames as obstacles and then convert them to benign objects, before the light reflects off them and triggers the obstacle circuit once again. Is your brain quieter without glasses. Are you able to focus better on tasks at hand, as you can devote more mental energy to whatever it is that you are doing?
There could easily be absolutely nothing in what I'm saying. Perhaps glasses and hats make literally no difference, and after a couple of days of getting used to them, and our brains just carry on as normal, forgetting they exist entirely. But I dont think its implausible at all that things such as hats and glasses, permanently in our vision, are creating permanent drains on mental resources, as our brains work to keep them from our conscious view.
For now, I will just try again to get along with contact lenses, and conduct a little case study on myself.
- Aluca Sol 