On Not Having Depth Perception
Depth perception

Image via Wikipedia

It’s really weird. Not having depth perception, I mean. Well, it IS weird, but I’m used to it, since I’ve pretty much had it for 30 years. So, yeah. But what I’m talking about is how I was talking with my dad a little while ago, and he mentioned wondering what that was like. Since he mentioned how if he looks through one eye, then the other, it’s sort of disorienting and weird, but for me it isn’t (Since his brain/eyes/whatever has the thing to go “HEY! I should put these two images together and be able to judge distance!”). I mean, sure, my picture shifts a little bit, what with my right and left eyes not being directly on top of one another, but when both eyes are open, it doesn’t really change much.

So, I’m not sure what having depth perception’s like. My best guess is what I see through 3-D glasses, where, y’know, you have a series of overlays of cardboard cut outs kinda hovering weirdly over things. I’d figure that this is probably more disorienting than not having any depth perception at all. (Or maybe 3-D glasses work totally differently for other people, I have no idea.)

For me, though, basically, when I look at things, it’s pretty much like a film, really. When I close one eye, it’s like watching a movie with part of the screen covered. Like, if you just take your TV, and throw a sheet of paper or so over the left third or so. (I mean, I have peripheral vision, of course, it’s just… also flat.) So, like in a film, you can tell that a thing is behind a table, or whatever, but you can’t really tell how far? That’s pretty much what I see. (Except that I don’t have lenses with different focal lengths and whatnot to do the cool trickery. My eyes just do that anyway.) I don’t have any way to judge distances. It’s very odd, because, for me, units of measurement are actually fluid. Like I have two main ideas for the “inch”. There’s the Small Inch and the Large Inch. I think, looking at a ruler one time, I think I figured it out. The Small Inch is between maybe 4/5″-1″, and the Large Inch is between 1 1/5″ – 1 1/4″ (roughly. Like I said, measurement is fluid. Even fake units like “small inch” and “large inch”.). As such, my idea of the foot is also different (between 10″ sometimes to about 14″ or so…). Same with the centimeter and such, but who cares about metric (I say this even though I tend to default to metric when estimating. I’m still off, but at least I’m all european about it.)?

In case you were wondering, that’s pretty much what it’s like. Sometimes I wonder if this is why I tend to get so drawn in to film and TV — it’s not that visually different to me, so everything seems a little more real to me. (Hm, I wonder if that’s also why I tend to still not be really sick of stuff like in What’s Up Tiger Lily with the silhouetted hand grabbing for the string in front of the projection, it’s a bit of an added level for me, since it’s not only playing with the film, it’s also playing a bit with my reality — well, even though I know that my TV or the Projection Screen isn’t a little window or anything, I mean, I don’t have depth perception, I’m not insane or dumb.) Although, you’d think if that was the case, I’d probably like fantasy-type things more, since it’d be More Real ™, but, well, it probably just makes me think that if I ever saw Fairies and Elves and stuff in real life, I’d be just as bored as I am now when I see them in film. (Of course, I do like the stuff like what Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam do, so, there you go.)

Enhanced by Zemanta