and now my eyes are stuck this way forever
I've acquired a new superpower
301–310 of 583 posts
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#302Weird timing. I dunno why this works but I've been using it to see mice. You see, I noticed that I have a mouse problem in my garage. I figure if I've seen one mouse, there are probably more. So, I stood on some stairs in my garage and crossed my eyes to sort of blur the scene. It allowed me to catch movement more quickly and I was quickly watching multiple mice run around the edges of the area.
Hmm. I noticed in lectures, if I stilled my eyes, most of the field of view would grey out, except for areas of motion (eg a lecturer's head or writing arm) which appeared normal. After motion stopped in an area, it would slowly grey out. When a motion started, its area would snap to normal, making it easy to spot onsets of motion. Eventually my eyes would twitch, and the whole field would refresh.
I first read about this back in the 1980s, in an issue of Science Digest. Couldn't find a link or reference on short notice, but here's something from the American Academy of Ophthalmology that explains the phenomenon, with an experiment to see the blood vessels in your eye:
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/experiment-se...
Apparently, the brain tends to ignore visual stimuli that don't change over a short period of time, which allows you see "around" the blood vessels passing through the middle of your eye. By closing your eye, and moving a penlight around against your eyelid, you can make the vessels cast a shifting shadow on your retina that makes them visible.
The reason you usually see everything out in front of you is that various actions cause your eye to shift about just a little, just enough to cause the image on your retina to shift about enough for the brain to notice.
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#303Fuck it does work...
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#304Wow! It really works. The missing bean "pops" out at you. The hardest part is getting your brain to focus on the cross-eyed virtual center image.
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#305This whole "just cross your eyes" thing has never worked for me, not once. I've seen these strange patterns printed on the backs of notebooks that supposedly make some sort of 3D effect when you "just cross your eyes". Later, when I saw similar images online, I was able to at least visualize these hidden shapes by opening the image in photoshop, duplicating the layer, setting the copy to "difference" and moving it left or right. The regular texture would eventually disappear and the shape would emerge. It's still a mystery to me what it feels like to view these the intended way though.
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#306This is exactly why I read HN
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#307This does not work even in the slightest. When I cross my eyes, the image becomes wayyyy too blurry and its hard to keep it in the center for more than a second
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#308I have a true vision-based super power. my vision is so bad with nearsightedness that when I take corrective lenses off, I can focus on an ipad mini screen within 10" of my face and perceptually it is the same as focusing on a distant movie theater screen. No straining, eyes totally relaxed. With the lights off, it's better than being in a theater. I tried an ipad pro in the Apple store and it felt like I had my own…
Unlike when focusing on a movie screen, your eyes have to turn inward to direct the pupils to converge at the physically near iPad. This can cause muscular eye strain (it does for me).
You can get clever and order a prismatic prescription that bends light out, so your eyes don't have to turn inward. I tried it too, but it gave me nausea.
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#309This whole "just cross your eyes" thing has never worked for me, not once. I've seen these strange patterns printed on the backs of notebooks that supposedly make some sort of 3D effect when you "just cross your eyes". Later, when I saw similar images online, I was able to at least visualize these hidden shapes by opening the image in photoshop, duplicating the layer, setting the copy to "difference" and moving it le…
Here are some tips;
1. When you cross your eyes, gradually let them return to uncrossed. Try to do it as slow as possible. Along the way, try to line up any structures that you see in the image that are repeated from left/right half.
2. Once you are able to hold a cross-eyed gaze long enough with lined up left/right half, slowly move your eyes between different features near the middle. Your eyes will naturally want to start to focus and match up pieces.
3. Don't be too far or too close to the image; they are usually easily viewed from comfortable distances. If the image is too big, make it smaller. It's usually easier smaller.
4. Initially, when you cross your eyes, or look through the image, it will likely be blurry. This is because your brain naturally associates accomodation and convergence with also changing focus. You'll learn to decouple those things and you will more quickly be able to go from focusing on the 2D image to crossing it without changing focus much.
There's a whole bunch on this site: https://www.magiceye.com/stwkdisp.htm
Re: I've acquired a new superpower
#310That's how I used to help my grandmother when I was a little child. She always used to remark that the last one (5th) was the most difficult to find.