What I See
I made a similar post on my “anonymous” personal blog probably 7 months ago, but it has come to my attention that it might be a good idea to share this here too.
As a person who is considered blind, and yet still has some vision, I have often been asked questions about my sight.
What can you see? How do you see?
How blind are you? What’s it like to see how you do?
Having never had good vision, I’ve found that it can be difficult to explain, especially since a lot of what I “see” and/or how I recognize things is based on knowledge from previous experiences. As an example I sometimes reference the tree in my front yard: Because I know there’s supposed to be a tree there and because I know that what I’m seeing is supposed to be a tree, I can usually end up correctly identifying it as a tree, even though what I’m actually seeing doesn’t look much, if anything, like one. Over the years I’ve developed some pretty good guessing skills, but, like I said, that usually only works if I have prior knowledge of an object similar to the one I’m supposed to be identifying. And along those same lines, when in a new/unfamiliar situations I really appreciate good descriptions of my surroundings from others – it helps me to make more sense of what I am seeing.
I’ve often wished I had a pair of glasses people could put on to make them see the way I do – that sure would have been handy when dealing with ignorant/arrogant classmates and teachers in school. Lately, the best way I’ve come up with to explain what or how I see is to use the super-macro (up close) setting on my camera, since this setting makes the camera extremely near sighted, like me – I can see pretty well when I’m up very close (1-4 inches) from something, but more and more details are lost as the distance increases. Color is basically the only thing I see at distances of more than a few feet. This photo method is not totally accurate, of course, because there are other issues with my eyes (including Glaucoma, Cataracts, horizontal Nystagmus, Chronic Dry Eye, and Photophobia) that all affect how well I see what I see, and also because a camera is only a moderately good imitation of a real human eye. However, it’s better than my usual vague or confusing, and sometimes snarky answers to these questions.
So, below are a few snapshots of my first guide dog blending in with the kitchen floor (3-4 feet away from me), as well as my keys laying on a table (an inch or so away from me), and my first guide dog sitting in our living room (about 1 foot away from me) to illustrate. On the left are photos representing sort of what I see, and on the right are photos of what I can only assume to be good/normal vision:
Like I said, it is NOT at all a perfect representation (some things I definitely see worse that what is depicted here, and some details I might see a little bit better), but maybe it’ll give a slightly better idea of what my sight is like for anyone who is curious.
