at the whole thing was wrong.

Having finished the examination I concluded that my eyesight was indeed better than before, despite my feelings of disorientation. Despite my reluctance to wear glasses, I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to get a new pair. Meanwhile I took to wearing my old glasses less and less often, taking them off whenever I noticed I didn’t really need them.

When my new glasses finally arrived, something surprising happened when I put them on. I felt as if my entire being shriveled up. My eyes felt tense; they almost hurt. My consciousness seemed to get sucked inward and I felt as if my solar plexus had suddenly been blocked. What was going on?

Because I wasn’t wearing glasses that often anymore, I sensed a dramatic shift in perception when I put on the new pair. In fact, a similar effect of constriction and tension occurs each time we put on corrective lenses, but we tend to get used to this to the extent where we don’t even notice it. You may recall the feeling the first time you were prescribed stronger glasses. It’s the same part of your consciousness saying, geez, this feels weird. But usually we suppress our discomfort because we rely on our doctor: “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

So how could putting on a pair of glasses cause such a stifling sensation? I knew that research had shown that the two aspects of eyesight had to do with more than looking either straight ahead or sideways. The central view which all routine examination focuses on is the analytical aspect of our mind’s eye, the one which probes our world in detail. The peripheral view, examined only if an illness is suspected, is the aspect of our mind which experiences our world as a whole. This global perspective allows us to scan our entire range of observation all the time. Only then do we decide what we wish to focus on.

By putting on glasses our peripheral view is considerably narrowed. Remember how the doctor would place a small ruler on your nose? He was measuring the distance between each pupil, so that the optician could provide precisely the right lens strength for the centre of each eye. If you take a closer look at your glasses you may be able to see this optical centre. The standard method of lens polishing ignores the fact that the eyes are constantly in motion. In reality, the strength of your glasses changes each time your eyes drift from the optical centre. But the eye doctor doesn’t tell you this, because he was never taught it was important.

Just how important is it? If you look straight down the middle of your lenses, your vision will be perfect: you can see every detail as if you were looking through a microscope or telescope. But as soon as you look to the left or right or up or down instead of straight ahead, the strength of those lenses changes and details become

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