We have always been told eyesight doesn’t get better. We have been told it is genetic - although what ‘genetic’ means is changing rapidly with new research - that our eyes have undergone an irreversible change, and we will never see clearly again.
Yet, we are also told that many of our bodily functions and processes are controlled by the brain, that we see with our mind. Mind over matter. If you’ve ever experienced a hallucination - be it drug-induced or otherwise - you know how true this is.
It never sat well with me that I would never see clearly again. Deep down, I never believed it. Grudgingly, over the years, I came to accept my deteriorating eyesight and need of glasses or contact lenses in my everyday life. Having a minimum vision of -4.25 dioptres, I use them almost all the time. I am using them now.
But, things still never added up.
I noticed how some mornings I would wake up and see clearer than usual. During my rebellious stage, I wouldn’t wear my glasses and - every now and then - I would blink and have 20/20 vision. A few blinks later, it would be gone. How can this be, I thought? I’m told I can’t see, but there are times when I can, even momentarily. Clearly, it isn’t beyond my physical capabilities; my thinking then - and now - is that if I can see sometimes, I have the potential to see all the time.
However, at that time I reached a dead end. My vision kept getting worse, and I still hadn’t figured out how to see better stably. I had tried eye exercises and it hadn’t worked. Life happened and this goal dropped in the list of my priorities. I began to have doubts.
Fast forward a few years to now. I graduated university, and of course the student life had led me to try new things, perhaps to a more extreme extent than some people. I took herbal medicine, got married in my first year, had months of anxiety that, as a result of, I received life-changing therapy for. Out of my natural curiosity about life, I tried drugs. I had almost forgotten my first time trying MDMA, but something clicked in my brain, a memory that wasn’t previously at the forefront of my mind about that night.
I didn’t need my glasses.
I hadn’t had an easy time of it that night. The come-up induced in me a full-on, 1 and a half hour panic attack. All I could see was a blur and all I felt was terror. I desperately wanted to sit down, but there was no-where to go in this nightclub. It felt like it went on forever. My friends tried to look after me as best as they could, but for that time, I was trapped in the feeling. At one point, reeling from the shaking, I took off my glasses and found I could see better without them - my vision was still shaky, but it helped.
I remember the exact moment the come-up stopped and became the high. The only true way I could describe how it felt was that I had been in a boat out at sea in a storm and it felt like I was almost not going to make it - and then, suddenly, I was out. The sea was calm and the ship was sailing into the sunset. My world stopped shaking in literally one instant. I felt tremendous relief. I felt OK.
The rest of the night, I felt incredibly safe. Each person around me that would normally induce a feeling of guardedness in me felt like a friend I simply hadn’t made yet. It was like being a kindergartner again, which I hadn’t remembered until then how it felt like. This left such an impression on me at the time that I simply didn’t focus on the fact that I could see perfectly clearly.
Without my glasses.
I became curious and got in touch with a friend that has taken the same drug. Her only reply was - “Why do you think I don’t wear my glasses on nights out anymore?” I was completely amazed - It wasn’t just me! I relayed this story to yet another friend, who I know through completely unrelated means. His eyes widened. “I know, right?!?!” he exclaimed. “I take my glasses off when I take MDMA because I don’t need them!!” We proceeded to talk about how what we see truly is our own perception of the world, not the reality of what we are seeing. (If anyone has taken LSD - my friend recounts that tripping with glasses on and without glasses is a very different experience, though I cannot confirm this.)
So, what does MDMA actually do? We know that it affects various neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin. We know that it induces feelings of connectedness with people around us. Could there really be a link between how we feel (which influences with neurotransmitters we produce, and how much) and what we see?
I am not the first to have written of psychosomatic causes of vision problems - various others have written of poor eyesight as an ‘unwillingness to see’, either the world around us or ourselves, for any number of reasons. Some talk about a defining ‘Vision event’ in people’s lives from where this mode of operation stems, for example witnessing violence or conflict that the person does not desire to see. It is easy to dismiss these theories as mere speculation or fanciful thinking without any evidence. However, the evidence for me has been mounting since I began questioning the experience I had had.
This can’t be ignored. This can’t be swept under the rug as a one-off, stand-alone experience, an abnormal outlier. This happened to me (although I am always the first to doubt my own experience). Moreover, it happened to people I know. Maybe it has happened to you, or people you know. I want to hear about your experiences. I searched online for an article or blog post for an experience like mine for some time before I realised that I would have to write it first. If this is you: I am here. Get in touch.
We need to rethink our approach to eyesight, because it is clear to me:
Eyesight is NOT what we think it is.
