#338 session: good weekend

Yeah, I'm on the right track.  Yesterday and today seemed to be pretty 'good eye' days.

It does seem that in the past week or so I have been particularly moody: up and down, which is not very normal for me.  I try not to let it affect my behavior, especially towards others, but I mostly notice it in my internal dialogue.  One day I'll be very happy, and then another day I'll be really irritated, and I'll allow for negative feelings to take control--except it doesn't really feel like a choice.

Also, this weekend for some reason I was extremely exhausted and I slept a ton.  And even on one of my days in which I slept for around 11 hours, I still wanted to sleep later on in the day.  Now that I'm in the week, I probably was so tired because I needed the sleep.  I think it's probably because vision therapy, especially productive vision therapy which is actually doing something in the brain, is exhausting.

I've heard that vision therapy can do this, and it can also cause mood swings.  It makes sense why this could happen.  You're causing non-trivial changes in the brain.  You're opening a channel through which a flood of new information will enter permanently.  Susan Barry talks a bit about these non-trivial changes in Fixing My Gaze, and how she perceived that vision therapy changed her brain's laterality.  Now a flood of new information is coming through, and accommodations have to be made for that.  I can easily see how that might have cascading non-visual-specific effects on the brain.  She mentioned greater ability and facility in processing information in a left-handed way (detail-oriented), and right-handed way (big picture, holistic) simultaneously.

That's actually another reason that I want to recover stereopsis which I didn't mentioned in this post, Does stereoscopic vision really make that big of a difference?: experiencing life with a stereo brain--not just the stereo vision, but all of that which it entails; having a fully-functional brain, made as nature intended.

We talked a little bit about that in DIY.  It was suggested by a member of the group that people with strabismus may have higher levels of anxiety than people on average.  I should really keep my mouth shut, because I don't know of any data which suggests that this is true.  But if I was forced to guess, I would say that it's true.

When hearing about the experience of people who recovered stereopsis, one of the most common things I hear is something along the lines of 'The world feels more real.  I feel more confident in navigating through the world.'.

If you feel more confident, you're going to have a greater sense of control.  I'm no psychologist, although I'm really interested in psychology.  It's my understanding that having a sense of control over one's environment is extremely important for a person's psychological health--and this is not just for humans, but all animals.  And if you're less confident than others on average, I could easily see how this could increase the likelihood of one developing different neuroses.

Anyway... enough speculation.  Off to the closet.