By Morris Dean
How do you feel about that?
Well, I feel it's...rather interesting...to me, at any rate. Do you remember that I said in Sunday's review that to my left eye the horizon now slopes off about 10° to the right?
Yes. What of it?
I realized later that was an incorrect statement. I think the left eye's horizon slopes off more like 6°, and the other 4° comes from the right eye's horizon's rising up to the right. That is, the right eye's horizon isn't level either, and it hasn't been since January 1996. I'm sorry I confused this point in Wednesday's review.
Why do you think you did that?
I think I had simply gotten used to regarding the right eye's horizon as being level—for convenience or—
For comfort?
Yes! I suppose so. As I indicated Sunday, my brain, aided by prisms in my spectacle lenses, had been able to fuse the two images pretty well (into a single 3-dimensional image), but now that the left image has twisted more, clockwise, fusion can't be accomplished.
Maybe it will take stronger prisms?
I would think so...if the condition persists. Friends have suggested that this might just be a temporary thing.
What's with the weird image above?
For a while the other day, it seemed to me that my brain was using my right eye's image for my face as a whole, but my left eye's image for my eyes! Not having a camera inside my head that can take a photo to share, I doctored an ordinary self-photo in Photoshop to approximate how I seemed to look to myself during that time. I took the photo of myself directly, by the way; it isn't a photo of my image in the mirror.
Yes, I can see that it matches your face that I'm looking at now—except for your eyes of course.
Thank goodness for that!
You say you saw yourself like that for a while the other day?
Right. I haven't been able to see myself that way again.
I'd say that's a very good thing—if not so interesting!
It's still interesting. Now, surprisingly, I'm finding that my brain seems to be preferring the left eye's image of myself to the right eye's image, so that when I look at myself in the mirror I see my head tilting to the right, and I have to close the left eye in order to see it tilting to the left. I created the animated GIF image below to try to illustrate this.
 |
| Left-leaning is the right eye's image; right-leaning is the left eye's image [Click image to reactivate animation] |
Was this one taken of the mirror? Your left ear seems to have moved over.
Good catch! But, no, it too was taken of me directly. I just flipped the photo horizontally to mimic a mirror image. That eye on the viewer's left is my left eye—the one that had the detached retina and was operated on 16 days ago. You can see it's still a little bloodshot.
Yes, I see that too, as well as the ear...But I'm confused. You said you see the left-eye's image now—your brain does. But now you seem to be saying that the two images switch back and forth?
Only if I alternately close an eye. I had expected that the two images would switch of their own accord if I looked at myself in the mirror long enough. I thought my brain would tire of one image and switch to the other, the way it switches when you stare at an optical illusion:
 |
| The duck-rabbit illusion |
You expected the left and right images to switch...but they haven't?
No, such a switch hasn't occurred. I have to alternately close one eye.
Maybe you just can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror for that long?
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean
| Please comment |
You made my head hurt, once more. I have one question Dr. Dean---what does the real doctor say?
ReplyDeleteLooking in mirrors these days is not a fun thing to do. In my mind, I'm still that twenty-something wild child. I go to shave and wonder who the hell that old fart is looking back at me.
Ed, I'm glad that I'm able to believe you're joking about the head-hurt...I trust that you really are joking?
DeletePlease confirm that you're referring to the fact that the description of left/right, mirror images, and counter- versus clockwise taxed your spatial imagination more than it had been taxed since the last time you took a college aptitude test.
I won't follow up with the eye surgeon until June 11, and I don't consider the apparent extra clockwise rotation in my left eye to constitute an emergency. So I'll wait twenty days and see what he says, if the condition persists until then. If it does, I suspect that I'll need to see my regular ophthalmologist to check out the possible use of stronger prisms. (Note: Since images are reversed in the brain, I suppose that the left eye's image is actually rotated more counter-clockwise, but I don't want to make your head hurt again.)
The worst case, as I see is, is that I can go back to putting a piece of "transpore" tape over one or the other of my spectacle lenses, as I regularly did before prisms were suggested (two or three years ago). I'd put tape over my right lens if I felt like seeing things tilt right, or over the left lens if I wanted to see things tilt the other way.
That was a joke: I'd put tape over my right lens for optimal near-seeing (reading and working at the computer; I'd have tape over my right lens now but for the fact that the left eye's image is a bit wavery—sort of like looking through Friday's fish bowl).
And I'd put tape over my left lens for optimal far-seeing (taking a walk, driving, watching TV).
Now, about your not having fun when you look in the mirror because you don't see that "twenty-something wild child": Do you actually have an image of how you looked 45-50 years ago? If so, please send photos. Or, better yet, write an article for them to go with....
Ed, one further point about the prism check. My sense that there's more "torque" now in my left eye's image is purely subjective (even if it's certain as of June 11 that I can't see as well with both eyes together as I used to), so testing what-strength prisms might be required to bring the central region of both eyes' images into alignment would be necessary to measure objectively how the misalignment might have worsened as a result of the retinal detachment and surgery.
DeleteThe point about "the central region," by the way, is that the divergence of the two images increases with the distance from the more or less shared central point of the two images—perhaps varies with the square of the distance, but I'm not sure about that. (Chuck, if you're following this, what do you think about that point? Thanks.)
Also, the diplopia caused by the mid-brain damage (a part of "Parinaud's syndrome") varies widely depending on eye position (whether I'm looking up, down, left, right, or straight ahead), so no prism solution is attempted for other than straight-ahead looking).
How you look is not nearly as important as how you see. I hope you are seeing better,
DeleteThank you, Jim. Of course, the way I'm looking to myself—the example I chose—is the way I'm seeing these days....
DeleteIt was a joke, but to take a test you prepare for it. In my case those days are long past and at 6:30 and one drink of coffee the brain has not woke up, yet. Not to mention the need to by-pass the dead or dying brain cells. All the photos of the 60s went by the way of a gal I was living with at the time. However, you might try the FBI, I'm sure they have some on file.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep a good thought about you eye problem, although I'm not sure what it is. (smile)
Ed, my son-in-law's father was in the FBI, and I've written to him (the son) for advice about what office of the FBI might best be able to help me acquire some 60's file photos of you. I'll let you know what I find out.
DeleteMost of my eye problem (the double-vision, the slow pupillary reaction, the upward-gaze palsy) derives from damage to my mid-brain, owing to the pineal tumor that I didn't know I had until a slip on ice and a consequent harsh landing on my butt, which rattled my spine all the way up to my brain stem, resulted in the tumor's hemorrhaging on I think it was January 10, 1996. The surgery that successfully removed about 85% of the tumor may also have done some damage to the mid-brain.
By the way, my case proved that Descartes was wrong about the pineal gland's being the site where the soul and the body are joined. I no longer have a pineal gland, but my soul and my body are still connected.
"Soul and body are still connected." How can you be SURE of that? How can WE be sure? ;>)
DeleteEd, my son-in-law's wife (i.e., my daughter) tells me that you have "to request [your] own file." I "can only request someone else's file if they are dead." Or, she says, you "can give [me] permission to ask for [your] info." I'd prefer for you to ask for your own yourself, if you wouldn't mind, Ed. As a favor to your editor-in-chief?
DeleteMy daughter provides a web address for further information: http://www.fbi.gov/foia/requesting-fbi-records. [The initials "foia," of course, stand for "freedom of information act."]
http://www.fbi.gov/foia/requesting-fbi-records
Chuck, I meant to put one of those wink symbols after my own comment, but I forgot.
DeleteOr, I almost added a comment to the effect that the soul and the body are one and NEED no connection, which seems to be the consensus now among philosophers who unanimously declare that Decartes was utterly wrong about the "ghost in the machine."
Thank your daughter but I prefer to let that sleeping dog alone. I don't even know if the people taking pictures at those marches were FBI or some of Nixon's goons. But hearing a knock on your door at 8:30 on a Sat. morning, then opening it to find two suits.... I have done some crazy things that have scared me, but hearing, "We are with the FBI and we would like to speak to you." That and the hour of questioning that followed is not something I want to repeat. This was during the time the Weathermen were blowing things up and I was making bombs for the Navy. Explosives went missing on my shift. They told me it had to be me or one other person. I knew it wasn't me, but how do you prove something like that? Three months went by and I heard nothing so I asked to be put back on my old shift. I have never heard anything since and like I told them, "I know no Weathermen and yes Sir, you may search my house." That was and is the only personal contact I want with the FBI.
DeleteThen there was my friendships in Texas. The FBI was looking at both of them, not sure if my name came up or not---and don't want to know. I joke a lot about those times, but it was no joke. If you had read my book you would have understood, there are things, which are buried and need to stay that way. That is why the novel is fiction.
Ed, I'll see to it that my daughter reads your comment. And I apologize again that I haven't read your novel yet. YET. That's the operative word.
DeleteI'm just afraid I'm going to want to serialize it on Moristotle & Co., and I have the disappointing feeling that you would not look kindly on such a request. I.e., that could be one reason why I'm slow to read it. (But I don't really think it is; I sort of think—but am not certain—that I'm joking at this point.)
I would prefer you forgot about this and let your daughter forget about it. I have never had fond feeling for the FBI.
DeleteEd, I can assure you that we have already both forgotten all about it....
DeleteThanks(smile)
DeleteNo need for FOIA. A Google search reveals a treasure trove of information, and many images allegedly showing the eras of your life. There are photos under your name showing you as a '60s-era protester, on a golf course, holding a fish (those I assume are from your California chamber of commerce era?) to your current Moristotle image. And, terrifyingly, it shows one of you as you could have been if you had stayed the course as chamber director/businessman/Republican (sorry for the absurdly long image address):
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=ed+rogers&client=firefox-a&hs=Ah&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3TafUbDbJpG09gT4uICwBg&ved=0CEYQsAQ&biw=1173&bih=564#facrc=_&imgrc=UeQkw8L_mZwvRM%3A%3B06dC-trlvFj24M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcdn.crooksandliars.com%252Ffiles%252Fuploads%252F2006%252F11%252Fedrogers41.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcrooksandliars.com%252F2006%252F11%252F28%252Fed-rogers-barack-hussein-obama%3B240%3B200
Ha, sure, "under Ed's name." <smile> I do recognize his Moristotle & Co. photo, however.
DeleteBefore I try and take a look at the pictures. How was the photo shoot for AARP. What is the title going to be, "From the wild-side to the bedside"? Going to look at pics now, will be back.
DeleteMoto, I could not get it to come up---the Feds may have blocked it by now.(joke) So was the AARP but I thought that one was funner.
DeleteWhen I lived in Cali there was a man that lived ten houses down from me, with the exact same name--first, middle, and last. The cops came looking for him one night and I guess if I hadn't been manger of the Chamber at the time they would have taken me in. Welcome back, by the way! Morris tried to narc me out to the Febs while you were gone, they maybe monitoring the site right now. (smile, smile)
Shouldn't this further qualify you as a "cockeyed optimist"?
ReplyDeleteExcellent! However, I'm not sure it's decided whether that shouldn't be "cockeyed pessimist"....
Delete