Skipped a few days, got kind of drunk

 Last time I noticed huge changes was three days ago.  The vision was still good in the preceding days, but hadn't noticed any real changes until today again--and it's still only midday.  So today is going to be great, and I'm looking forward to seeing (heh) what happens. 

Not a whole lot to say that wouldn't be redundant.  On mind in particular is how my vision feels.  It's like this thing--the I--the homunculus is kind of shifting between my eyes.  I know where he's supposed to be.  He's supposed lying flat--prone--between the two eyes.  And I can kind of squash him down at will, and when I do, it feels freaking amazing.  It's impossible to describe.  

As I look at the text as I write this, I am notice a very small amount of difference in size and clarity of the text for the double images.  If my vision feels this good right now, even with diplopia, it's hard to imagine how great it's going to feel when it's completely gone.  As I look around at the objects, I am noticing the diplopia is very close to being gone (the overlaying of the double images are closer together now than they ever have been--by a significant margin--even compared to yesterday--so I'm very excited to get out and walk and use my vision).  

I did get kind of drunk last night.  That's supposed to be bad for the brain--and health in general--so I do drink in moderation--maybe a few times a week, socially.  Very occasionally--maybe two times a year--I will get properly shitfaced.  That does seem to have an impact on vision--a positive impact on vision the next day.  I'm not sure why, but that won't stop me from speculating.  And of course, I'm not advocating people go on benders to accelerate results in vision therapy.  But here goes.  

I have noticed, generally, that I will see significant improvements in results the day after a significant system shock.  Pulling multiple all-nighters in a row would be an example of a system shock.  It's really not good for you, and I'm not advocating doing it.  But there are times when it happens and it's fact of life that sometimes it's unavoidable.  But once it's done and I've had a day or two for recovery, I'll notice significant improvement in my vision.  Getting properly shitfaced would be another example of a system shock.  I suspect something similar is going on with cold exposure when one submerges his body in 33º F water for five minutes.  If you've done it, you know that it is a system shock--although undoubtedly healthier and more sustainable than benders or acute sleep deprivation.  So I suspect there's some kind of hormetic effect going on--and that might be part of what's going on.  

Since I noticed that relationship between a good shit-facing, and improved vision the succeeding day, that got me curious about what kind of impact a good shit-facing has on the brain.  So I ran some queries and found this. 

Acute doses of alcohol impair memory when administered before encoding of emotionally neutral stimuli but enhance memory when administered immediately after encoding, potentially by affecting memory consolidation. Here, we examined whether alcohol produces similar biphasic effects on memory for positive or negative emotional stimuli.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711324/

So it seems that there is some science in the idea that a good shit-facing can enhance memory consolidation after memories have been made.  

That would definitely seem to jibe with my own personal experience.  When I do vision workouts, I'm imprinting memories on my visual system, and making changes to my brain.  Then afterwards, I'll brine my neurons a bit with some ethanol, and thus consolidate those changes.  Again, not saying one should do this.  Just noticing.

Lot of progress/jerkiness/relief

Today has been another mammoth step change in my vision.  I still have more weeks ahead of me, but I'm relieved that I no longer believe I have to make any changes to my regimen until the day my new vision arrives.  I don't have to make any changes like get contact lenses.  

To date, this has to be the biggest change I've so far seen.  In a sense, my vision is a bit more unstable than it was in the days preceding, because my visual system suddenly has a lower tolerance for visual conflict.  That's a good thing.  But it also means that I've been doing a lot of constant adjusting/tugging at my eyes when they get out of line.  I know I'm still suppressing, but it's a complex thing.  It's pretty damn amazing.  I'm exhausted. 

Ok, wow. Making a lot of progress as of late.

 I haven't been doing any vision therapy at all.  I've been doing a lot of walking, and practicing binocular posture while doing that.  I'll really focus on looking off into the distance, minimizing diplopia, keeping a singular whole view of everything in front of me, keeping both visual channels (for both eyes) open, willing the information to pass through to my visual cortex, keeping my gaze soft, keeping motor control on for both eyes. 

It's a lot to think about, but it's becoming less thinking, and over time it's becoming more automatic.  I kind of figured out how to chunk all of these things into a single 'feeling'--so it's not as much mental effort as it sounds.  I've offloaded a huge amount of it into a single chunk.  Now I just have to keep building on that chunk.  

So I've been working on this chunk for quite a number of hours each day while I walk.  I'll periodically look down and at something like my hand, or feet in order to give my extra-ocular muscles a workout--my obliques in particular.  

 

It's weird to think that you have a pair of muscles that control eye-torsion--that you can twist your eyes.  There's an excellent video about it here.  Once you understand it, it makes total sense. 

In addition to having esotropia, hypertropia, possible aniseikonia (one eye's image input looks larger than the other), I also had cyclodeviation (one of the eye's input is twisted compared to the other).  I wasn't sure how that was going to be fixed. 

Alas my persistence with all of this was enabled by my faith in my neuroplasticity, and of the plasticity of my visual system.  I was confident that if I gave my brain the right input, and trained it how to use the eyes in the right way, that my brain would sort out how to make sense of the input--regardless of how messed up that input was.  How did I untwist my visual input?  How did I correct the size of the visual input?  How did I correct all of those deviations?  Through an ungodly amount of persistence, experimentation, introspection, submerging my body in ice water, and frankly--it took balls.  As far as the details of how my brain did it, that's a great question.  Our bodies and brains are a freaking miracle.  That's how.

I feel like I've hit a huge milestone, and I have a much stronger grasp of how to use my eyes.  It feels damn good.  It feels damn good to know that I did this--but the sensation itself of using my eyes correctly is incredible.  It feels really freaking good.  And this is how normal people feel--lucky bastards.  I'm reminded of something Susan Barry said about her new vision after she gained permanent stereopsis at the age of 50, which is that people who have a normally developed visual system have no idea how great it is.  It's impossible for them to fully appreciate what a miracle it is.  I feel like I'm getting closer, day by day, to understanding what she meant by that.  I feel great to know that I finally know what I'm doing, and the rest is going to be easy.  Just gotta keep going, and enjoy the ride. 

To soften one's gaze

 About four days or so ago, I was playing PavlovVR, and was enjoying myself immensely--not so much from the game itself, but by how much more 'on' my eyes were.  I was definitely picking up a lot more visual information than normal, and had a much greater sense of depth and immersion.  I'm becoming a much more visual animal.  I was just noticing that there were certain things, certain details, like birds in the sky, or someone's facial expression, that I would have never noticed before. 

I was moving around, noticing that I could pay attention through both eyes, it suddenly occurred to me what my vision therapist told me to do about 13 years ago.  In some of my exercises, she told me to 'soften' my gaze.  I kind of knew what she meant.  But now I really know what it means.  It's easing effort--and really taking attention away from any singular source of input--more like easing back and noticing input.  This takes the strain off, and I found it made my eyes do their thing more naturally, and without effort.  It's kind of funny.  I was thinking about using my eyes in a productive way, and then I naturally found myself softening my gaze, as prescribed my vision therapist all those years ago. 

I can feel big changes coming

 My vision feels very different as of late.  I'm not sure how this is going to pan out, but the changes are great, and I'm enjoying it.  

It definitely feels like everything I did before cold exposure was just me becoming familiar and intimate with my visual system, but then everything afterward was action, and actual change-making.  I know that's not true.  My visual system did change quite a lot before cold exposure (B.C.E.).  But things have accelerated, for sure.  I am excite.

Expecting perceptual shift soon

 I've talked in previous entries how there's a little dance I notice between subjective and objective markers of improvement, and that there doesn't seem to be a 1:1 correlation between the two.  Like if I see objective improvement is convergence and my ability to lock on objects with both eyes, it doesn't necessarily correlate with increased brightness, perceived detail, or depth.  However, they do seem to track each other imperfectly.  So if I notice a ton of objective improvement, and I don't yet have the corresponding subjective improvement, I know I am 'due' for subjective improvement and changes in qualia in the near-term.  That describes my current situation pretty well.  I am due for some changes.  That's kind of where VR comes in.  For some reason, the stereo cues are so artificially ramped up in VR that I can more easily gauge where I am on the subjective side.

Powering through aniseikonia

 Man... messing with VR has been wild lately.  It does appear to be doing a lot of work as of late.  I'm noticing depth more and more with objects further out.  I can definitely notice depth with the rear of the gun (as you hold it out in front of you).  But I'm now noticing it more and more with other objects.  Things are definitely changing.  

I'd mentioned in previous entries that the power of the input for each eye is not the same, and that text size and clarity is different for each eye.  It's actually hard to say which eye it was that looks better for close-up objects at the moment.   I think it's probably left.  That's how much things have changed.

I think that's one of the things I've noticed as I improve generally, there is more equality between the two eyes.  How is that happening?  Is it because because they're being used equally, and so their strength becomes somewhat equal through equal use?  Or is it because of the underlying neurology?  For instance, perhaps the optical power isn't changing for the eyes themselves, but the signal being received in the visual cortex is changing as a result of stronger, more robust neural pathway. 

That's kind of the crazy thing about the eyes.  A lot can be done in software.  The brain is a bit different from a computer, because with computers there's a hard line between software and hardware.  With the brain, it's all wetware, which physically changes as you make changes to your program.