Voluntary Blurry Vision?

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The only time it's useful is in those magic eye pictures.

That is a slightly different thing. To see those, you need to change the alignment of the eyes (as used for binocular vision) as if you were looking a distance, but keep the focus close so the image is in focus.

I think the subject of the thread is (voluntarily) changing the focus of the eyes (presumably to infinity - but my distance vision now is so bad, I can't test that!) while keeping the binocular alignment on a closer object.

 

Edited April 22, 2018 by Strange

[Dylan T.]

Is this a birth defect?

[Strange]

27 minutes ago, Dylan T. said:

Is this a birth defect?

Huh? It seems a perfectly normal ability that most people have (or can learn).

[Jay_H]

Hey, sorry for replying to a long-dead-thread, but I can also blur my vision and did some research on it as well. I hope my research provide you guys with some useful information.

Intensity

I found out that you can adjust the blurriness of your eyes. Putting it to the Maximum blur (The Max blur your eyes can handle.) Will make you have a double vision.

Time

I can blur my eyes for days, but that usually leads to muscle fatigue.

Possible Benefit

If you can control the blurriness of it, can you reverse the effect so that if your eyes become naturally blurry, you can reverse it and see things clearer; Basically, seeing without glasses. [I have yet to test this out since I am a person with 20/20 vision]

Some Notes

When you blur your eyes in an environment with an above average light level (Depends on the person.) You will feel pain in your eyes. [I don't know exactly about this since I am used to the dark.] 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Jay_H

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, Jay_H said:

but I can also blur my vision

It might be more interesting if there was anyone who couldn't do this.

[Jay_H]

1 minute ago, Strange said:

It might be more interesting if there was anyone who couldn't do this.

Well, it's all natural (I think.) since at this very moment, while reading this, other parts of your vision blurs. 

[Bender]

I can only do it when looking at a nearby object. When I look in the distance, I can't blur my vision. 

[Strange]

4 minutes ago, Bender said:

I can only do it when looking at a nearby object. When I look in the distance, I can't blur my vision. 

I am fairly sure that is because when you relax the focus, the eye focuses on infinity.

[Dylan T.]

2 hours ago, Bender said:

I can only do it when looking at a nearby object. When I look in the distance, I can't blur my vision. 

That to me seems odd since your eyes are naturaly supposed to do the opposite

[Strange]

7 minutes ago, Dylan T. said:

That to me seems odd since your eyes are naturaly supposed to do the opposite

Why?

[Dylan T.]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Why?

If you focus on what is in front of you everything around will become blurred

[StringJunky]

5 hours ago, Bender said:

 When I look in the distance, I can't blur my vision. 

Put something close up to your eye when you do that... is it sharp?

Edited May 1, 2018 by StringJunky

[Dylan T.]

Ya...

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 4/22/2018 at 10:27 AM, StringJunky said:

The only time it's useful is in those magic eye pictures.

My guess is that it is useful to defocus visually when you want to focus mentally on the periphery of your vision, possibly in one area of the periphery or possibly for the appearance of something, say when hunting or even fighting). I really have nothing to back that up other than to say I feel it works for me (not that I hunt or fight, but in a number of similar ways). It is a related technique to "glancing around" but I (feel again) it has advantages in some circumstances, and sometimes switching back and forth between the two techniques. I'm not sure everyone doesn't do this whether they realize it or not.

Edited May 1, 2018 by J.C.MacSwell

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

My guess is that it is useful to defocus visually when you want to focus mentally on the periphery of your vision, possibly in one area of the periphery or possibly for the appearance of something, say when hunting or even fighting). I really have nothing to back that up other than to say I feel it works for me (not that I hunt or fight, but in a number of similar ways). It is a related technique to "glancing around" but I (feel again) it has advantages in some circumstances.

Yeah. I 've thought of another one: if you concentrate - not focus - on the periphery, you can apparently see dimmer stars at night than with the central portion.

[J.C.MacSwell]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Yeah. I 've thought of another one: if you concentrate - not focus - on the periphery, you can apparently see dimmer stars at night than with the central portion.

I saw the Wiki on that (averted vision) Apparently Aristotle used the technique. I had not heard of it before. Not exactly what I was thinking but obviously related. I have heard that peripheral vision is better with movements, where the centre is of course better at definition.

[StringJunky]

6 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I saw the Wiki on that (averted vision) Apparently Aristotle used the technique. I had not heard of it before. Not exactly what I was thinking but obviously related. I have heard that peripheral vision is better with movements, where the centre is of course better at definition.

I think the periphery is probably more 'black  and white' i.e higher contrast, which might make signs of movement more apparent.... just guessing.

[Bender]

5 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Put something close up to your eye when you do that... is it sharp?

Of course not.

5 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

My guess is that it is useful to defocus visually when you want to focus mentally on the periphery of your vision, possibly in one area of the periphery or possibly for the appearance of something, say when hunting or even fighting). I really have nothing to back that up other than to say I feel it works for me (not that I hunt or fight, but in a number of similar ways). It is a related technique to "glancing around" but I (feel again) it has advantages in some circumstances, and sometimes switching back and forth between the two techniques. I'm not sure everyone doesn't do this whether they realize it or not.

When I focus on my peripheral vision, eg in pattern finding games, there is no blurring. Wouldn't that also blur the periphery? 

[Dylan T.]

So is there really not a use for this "ability"

[Doozel]

On 1/5/2018 at 6:49 PM, Bender said:

I can only do it when looking at a nearby object. When I look in the distance, I can't blur my vision.

I feel it's much more difficult, for me at least, since what you are trying to do is manually adjusting your focus.

The further what you are trying to watch is, the less stressed your eyes are while mantaining focus. This means that if you want to defocus something close you can just relax your eyes, but the other way around is different. When it comes to observing an object our brain does everything for us and we don't really need to think about it.

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 5/2/2018 at 1:04 AM, Bender said:

Of course not.

When I focus on my peripheral vision, eg in pattern finding games, there is no blurring. Wouldn't that also blur the periphery? 

Not sure. Do you mean when you succeed in getting the image?

[StringJunky]

On 02/05/2018 at 5:04 AM, Bender said:

Of course not.

Then you are seeing blurred in that section.

Quote

When I focus on my peripheral vision, eg in pattern finding games, there is no blurring. Wouldn't that also blur the periphery?

The bringing into focus in such games  is happening in the brain, not in the eye.  Depth perception is a mental construct where information is taken from both eyes and processed in the brain to create 3D. You are probably doing this processing for that aspect there i'e  it's not a raw ability of the eye.

[Bender]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Then you are seeing blurred in that section.

Which is a passive effect i.e. I'm not actively blurring my vision. But as I already said, I can actively blur my vision for close objects. I can also focus on something close, which passively blurs objects in the distance. What I cannot do is actively blur objects in the distance (ie without "cheating" by focussing on a nearby object).

[Dylan T.]

On 5/6/2018 at 11:55 AM, Bender said:

Which is a passive effect i.e. I'm not actively blurring my vision. But as I already said, I can actively blur my vision for close objects. I can also focus on something close, which passively blurs objects in the distance. What I cannot do is actively blur objects in the distance (ie without "cheating" by focussing on a nearby object).

I don't follow

 

[Bender]

1 hour ago, Dylan T. said:

I don't follow

 

You'll have to be more specific.