#26 session

This was a pretty decent session.  It was easy.  The session that I did last night was actually a bit challenging in that there was a constant need for correction on the hypertropia.

The lazy-eye image is getting stronger and the softer edges is going more noticeable.  However, when I alternate to that eye, the soft edges go away.  It's like the visual system has a difficult time focusing on both simultaneously.  There are a few things that I think could be the cause for it, but what I'm thinking might be going on is that accommodation may be slightly out of sync between the two eyes.

I read in Fixing My Gaze that accommodation and vergence occur together in a single reflex.  When you look at something, mechanically, there are two things happening.  Each eye deforms the lens in order to change the optical power so that the image hits the retina right smack.  This is accommodation.  The closer the object is, the more convex the lens becomes (in mammals anyway).  The farther away the object is, the less convex the lens becomes.  The most common problems with accommodation are known as hyperopia and myopia, which are better known as farsightedness and nearsightedness.  With hyperopia the image lands right before the retina.  With myopia the image lands behind the retina.

The other thing that happens when you look at an object is that both eyeballs point themselves directly at the object.  This is called vergence.  When the eyes move inward, it's convergence.  When they move outward, it's divergence.

Both of these mechanical actions happen together in a single reflex.   So if you have accommodation problems with one eye, it can prevent you from being able to properly point both of your eyes at the same spot in space.  Or it could be the case that neither of your eyes has problems with accommodation, but instead, accommodation of each eye is out of sync with one another--this could understandably happen if you've never properly used both of your eyes together in your entire life.

If you've had strabismus all your life and start working on fixing it, you're going to find that as you familiarize yourself with your equipment that it is very rusty.  You'll find a lot of quirks as a result of disuse.

I'm going to go ahead and guess this is what's going on.  I do find that I can sort of fudge it though.  I can consciously control the lazy eye's accommodation so that both images are clear, at least temporarily.  It is stressful and unsustainable to do for a duration.  This may be the right thing to do, and through time, I may be able to adjust the way the reflex wants to work.

This is definitely going to be the last week that I'm going to use the magenta filters.  It's too stressful on the body.  I think it's interfering with my sleep.  On Sunday, I'll move to the next set of filters (dark green), and when that's done, I'll start over again.

Saccades were great.  They're still getting better.  As I said previously, it's just fine tuning now.  But it's the fine tuning which is going to finally allow me to fuse.