BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Troubador" data-source="post: 3420386" data-attributes="member: 109211">Should we believe what we see?I read about a man who for clear and understood physical reasons had areas of his vision that perceived no images: he had blank spots.His brain refused to accept the existence of these blank spots and filled the blank spaces with images from his memory.I can't remember all of these images (they changed unpredictably) but a couple if them were images of stained-glass windows that the man had seen in the past and he had seen them in pretty much the position of the blank spots in his vision. It was a feature of these 'halucinations' that they were in the appropriate position of his vision so his brain was definitely trying to make sense of these blank areas.When scanning areas of brown seaweed and dark rocks, looking for Otters in the west of Scotland, it takes not only experience but a force of will to see detail (and have a chance of spotting the Otter) and not just to allow the eye to dimly register overall outlines. Sometimes having stared at the same spot for many seconds, an otter that was there but I hadn't perceived, would move and suddenly I could see all of its detail and the detail of surrounding rocks and seaweeds and shellfish. It was there all along but I was only looking not 'seeing'. I am more successful and managing this nowadays but it still requires a concious effort.Vision is what our brain allows it to be, no wonder we can disagree about the view through binoculars.Lee</blockquote>

Verification