Did you have strabismus?
It took some doing, but I got it.
Appears so. I thought strabismus was synonymous with “lazy eye” - but “alternating strabismus” appears to be an accurate description of what I had. Had to go through the stage where they tried to correct it with prism glasses for a while when I was little. I certainly had plenty of cover tests.
There’s a page for strabismus surgery, but it’s rather vague. I always wondered exactly how they did it - it seems like it would be pretty difficult to get at the muscles that move the eye. But I always figured they were behind the eye, I remember the stitches feeling like they were right behind my eyes (and that’s a fun week, let me tell you) - are they more to the sides, in the shallow part of the occular cavity, so that they can be accessed just by pulling the skin back around the eyes?
IANAOphalmologist, but I’ve been troubled with strabismus/diplopia since a car accident a few years ago. I was told there are three muscles that control the movement of the eye; one for the horizontal, one for the vertical, and one for the diagonal.
Of course, my problem is with diagonal vision, and those muscles are furthest back in the orbit, natch. Given the degree of my non-fused vision, I am not a candidate for surgery, prisms didn’t work, so I walk around with a patch around my neck for when I need it.
The surgery seems to entail snipping part of the muscle, or stitching it, depending, I assume, on what directional correction needs to be made.
I have 20/20 vision, and when I close one eye, it’s just as you described. No change really, except the field shifts slightly if I close my dominant eye.
The 3D is effect is not striking or even really noticable at all.
Can anyone else with normal vision confirm this? Rick seemed to think it made a dramatic, noticible difference.
I’m 20/20 and I experience basically the same thing as Eleusis, but things right in front of me seem just a little off if I try to do a test of my perception. For example if I close one eye and touch my fingertips together quickly. I can still do it with my eyes closed but because my field of vision is “shifted” (as Eleusis explained) it just looks a little different and is not as instinctual as with both eyes open. I would think Rick experienced what he did probably because he had become so used to seeing everything without the depth. People with 20/20 vision are used to seeing things usually with depth but it’s not completely foreign for us to see out of only one eye because we have the option to do it. People with the same condition as Rick only see things one way, with no option of a second.
The same goes for me as UKCatGirl and I have 20/15 vision. If I close one eye and concentrate I notice that things are flat and 2d, but the difference does not jump out at me.
I had a lazy eye as a child and it was never corrected. I have no depth perception. What this means in practice is that when I see things they all appear to be at the same distance if I ignore the other visual clues that tell me which ones are closer and which ones are further away.
For example, sitting at my desk right now there are two monitors on my desk, a monitor on a credenza a few feet in front of my desk, and a whiteboard on the wall behind the credenza. They all appear to be the same distance away - that is, my eyes tell me I could reach out and touch any of them, though I can only actually reach the two monitors on my desk. Fortunately, my brain knows that things that are behind other things must be further away and keeps me from screwing up too much.
The lack of depth perception really held me back in playing baseball. I was a pretty good ballplayer as a kid. The ball moved slowly enough so that my brain could figure out where it was and I could hit it and catch it. Then puberty struck little league and the pitchers threw harder and the batters hit harder. I could no longer hit the ball and I was often in danger of catching the ball with my face. One time I slid into second base and came up about 10 feet short. I had to stop playing.