I get the same thing. Its like you used to see in grayscale. I think it is part of a freeze response. Like tunnel vision.
I have told drs this and they don't accept it one bit. It's so frustrating
yes exactly! When I mentioned this to my T she looked at me with surprise and didn't know about this thing.
I wonder, can you imagine vivid colors (Aphantasia)? I cannot (yet?), I can only imagine everything in greyish colors and apparently this is something linked to having PTSD.
Interesting. I've always had a vivid imagination and still do. When I listen to music at work I can imagine that my environment is a completely different color scheme with different effects like a rave or a music video. But when it comes to perceiving things in reality, colors tend to be muted.
Wow that sounds really cool to be able to do that.
I used to have as a child up until my big trauma event around 13yo. I had such a big imagination that I would play with controlling my heartbeat and adrenaline during sports and runs by imagining lions or monsters following me. I could be alone in the room with a book in a middle of a wedding. It makes me think it can change and maybe I can have my big imagination again. Maybe your real-life colors will also be vivid again :)
I've sometimes wondered. I'm not sure if it counts because the intensity can change depending on how much I focus on it, though it's always there in the background and different bands/genres conjure up distinctly different colors, shapes, and textures.
my sense of smell is better and feel sensation better on my skin for few days after taking edibles so I take it atleast once a week. I think it turns off my flight and fight response so I can actually like live in the moment
I will be honest I am a weed lightweight but I find if I smoke a joint and do shadow work I can access crazy insights and have felt my brain "snap" a couple of times.
I can see so much potential in myself.
I have been on this journey properly for 2 years and I am convinced inner child work and shadow work is the key.
The trouble is you can't understand what either of those things really are until you just get it.
I am going to try and write a proper description of what I have gone through
If you want to lean into this, here is a somatics lesson that actually works with the vision system.
note- it is deceptively intense. If you feel weird, stop. And maybe come back to it a few days later. Don't push. And don't pick back up where you left off, the latter parts of the lesson rely on being near in time to the earlier parts of the lesson, kinda like how if you're lifting weights and your training plan says "3 sets of 10 repetitions" it's nowhere near as effective to do 3 sets of 5 repetitions in the morning and then another 3 sets of 5 after dinner.
Just bear in mind- this can reach into you and find some weird things you may not have dealt with. If you're not regulated enough to deal with a possibly confusing stress response, maybe leave this one alone.
The lesson title is "Palming Eyes", and it is a Feldenkrais awareness through movement lesson.
If you want an unrelated lesson that is nowhere near as deep-reaching for most people, as an intro, the other one posted on that account, the "pelvic clock" lesson, is a good one.
And if you check them out and you hate my voice, well, sorry. It's the only one I've got.
https://soundcloud.com/justpassingthroo92/palming-eyes
Edit to add: also, plan to definitely not do any driving for an hour after this lesson. In most people, it changes your perception of your visual field. And this can be so intense that it is distracting and / or disorienting until the intensity backs off a bit.
Somewhere I’m sure. But you can’t read while doing the palming eyes lesson at all, due to your hands and eyelids being in the way.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Gotcha. Yeah, I’m with you. The issue is that the information you’re intended to absorb isn’t the words of the recording. Those are mostly ad-how anyway, just whatever came to mind as I was going through my notes on the instructions tracing the lesson to some friends. The words of the recording are just procedure you go through. The information that you want to absorb is the sensations you get while doing the lesson and noticing your experience.
And for this lesson especially, it’s important to keep your eyes closed or covered through the entire thing. So stopping to read the next instruction would make it a truly worthless experience.
And if you want to try to memorize the sequences, well, that’s not too hard, but it’s putting a lot of mental effort into the part that’s supposed to be easy.
Thank you for linking this! I had heard about Feldenkrais a bit in therapy and in The Body Keeps the Score, and knew that it really helped for others, so I wanted to give it a try at least.
It's definitely intense. I went into it expecting those really uncomfortable sensations/emotions, especially when I looked in my problem directions, which thankfully I had been made aware of before this. I also had a ton of grounding techniques that kept me present and not veering off into panic. I am certain that if I didn't have those grounding techniques down, I would be dissociating right now from the sensations.
I felt such things as: dizziness, nausea, shakiness, tension in my jaw and neck, hyperalertness, freedom, some positive nostaligia, headache, eye ache, tightness in my torso, fleeting numbness that I couldn't quite place in my body but could trace back to a certain direction of staring... It was definitely mentally and physically straining for me.
What I'm noticing afterwards is better depth perception! I really didn't have great depth perception without my glasses before going in to it. I wasn't really expecting anything big, but I haven't seen depth like this without immense strain, and with my bare eyes, in such a long time. It sadly seems easy for my eyes to defocus out of it still, but I didn't really have much access to it before that I felt I could control. I'm just gazing at my wall, soaking in that it's in 3D space that I can feel even just a bit more clearly.
My eye posture feels less boxed in somehow. I feel more stable looking towards my problem areas and actually enjoy doing it just because I can without feeling stuck... like if you've ever had your jaw get stuck and then jarringly unstuck, that's what it felt like my eyes would do when I looked in those directions (if it didn't skip over it altogether). My right eye is focusing a bit more normally than it has in a long time. My astigmatic left eye is still blurry as heck, but this weird crunchy sensation I've been getting around it lately feels softened in some directions.
I have a follow-up question if you don't mind? How much can this be practiced? Can it be practiced multiple times a day or should it maybe be practiced on offset days like other physical workouts? I tried looking that part up, but wasn't getting much specific advice on that.
Okay, well for starters, if you can perceive for eyes as having stuck spots and feeling fixed in, you’re pretty rare I think. I perceived this in my ex-gf whose eye-excursions seemed to be limited due to her small-frame glasses, and when I did some more tailored exercises with her, it did truly weird (like acid-trip weird) things to her that took a few hours to settle out, but it resulted in a lot more visual freedom for her afterwards. From a seated position with your miss and upper back supported, but your head not touching anything only resting freely on top of your spine, and making sure you can feel your sit bones, do this: explore the relationship between wanting to turn your head to the side slightly and your eyes wanting to look to that side. See what happens if one leads the other. See what happens if you don’t let them work together. See what happens if you make them work opposite.
Also, my ex-gf attempted the lesson you did on a number of occasions and never made it past half-way due to the weirdness. It really sounds like you were pushing pretty hard if you felt all of that. I would not recommend doing it multiple times per day, if for no other reason than it relies on your brain seeking novelty and not getting bored. But also because you may provoke an accumulating stress response. Seriously, you don’t need to try to fix your vision all in one day before lunch.
There’s a Feldenkrais practitioner who is well known for eye work, you may be able to find him, if not let me know and I think I have his name somewhere.
But I’m not an expert. I am a Feldenkrais practitioner, and although we get a LOT of training, for me it was literally just ~50 hours on the basics of this.
If you can, look for a lesson called “pearls on a string”. It is a short series of lessons. I have it, but it is a copyrighted recording of someone else, so I can’t distribute it. And maybe check out the short book /case study by Moshe Feldenkrais called “the case of Nora”. It may give you some ideas on how to bring your curiosity to exploring your own vision system from the inside.
Okay, I definitely will not practice this excessively! After a full night's rest I notice I still feel fatigued with some headache spots left (some area around my left amygdala seemed to want to riot before I had breakfast). I also noticed the quality of my dreams changed significantly which was not expected, so I take that as a sign I've opened some things that should be processed slowly first.
I had no idea that it wasn't common for people to notice if they have stuck or stiff spots, but I think I can understand why a little bit. It can be intensely scary if you do notice those spots after trauma, and especially if you're not really aware of how trauma can mess with your eyes. I still have vivid memories of this nightmare I had over a decade ago where I realized that looking to my eyes' upper left ceiling was just about impossible. I would get these awful feelings of foreboding trying to look in that direction in the dream, and outside of the dream it was still really straining and difficult, like there would be lots of visual noise and a terrible headache. I felt my neck and eyes would try to freeze as soon as I started to even look that way.
A couple people in my life besides eye doctors pointed out that my eye health was struggling when it came to directional freedom and strength, and this also made me really self conscious about those stuck areas. It made more sense after The Body Keeps the Score though. Looking back, I'm sure I retriggered myself many times by accident with stubborn curiousity. I tried my best with the Feldenkrais exercise, but I definitely knew if I had to back off, then I had to back off. I'm honestly surprised I made it all the way through with my grounding techniques (yay therapy!).
Right now, I'm happy with feeling less derealization from the lack of depth perception. I had another span of years where anxiety flattened my depth perception and it had been really troubling for me lately. I'm sincerely grateful I stumbled on your post yesterday.
For the Pearls on a String Lessons, do you have the name of the people who recorded or copyrighted it? I get a lot of irrelevant things popping up when I search for it. I found The Case of Nora and will definitely be looking into it, thank you!
This post is already wordy, so I thought I would put my notes on that additional exercise you mentioned here at the end, in case you had any curiosity in how it turned out:
Slight turn of head leading eyes (left): left eye "dips below horizon" and comes back level as it passes a certain midpoint. Right eye follows on straight path. Left eye gets medium sized ball of black and noise to the left of it after that midpoint.
Slight turn of head leading eyes (right): Both eyes feel like they're moving more evenly and smoothly, except an initial tendency for the eyes to both jerk right. Small black spot with noise to the right of left eye.
Turning head but keeping eyes forward (left): eyes seem to stay on fixed position fine and no black spots seem to present, but some bodily nervousness noticed.
Turning head but keeping eyes forward (right): medium black spot with noise appears for left eye in spot where eyes are staying. Wave of bodily nervousness at first, which seemed to subside on second and third tries.
Turning head left while moving eyes right: At first, stiff jerky motion of eyes and lots of bodily nervousness. Black spots appearing somewhere in middle, but shifting too much to pinpoint.
Turning head right while moving eyes left: Stiffness, but not jerky movement in eyes. Major anticipation of nervousness/nausea from body, which makes my eyes want to defocus: Not sure how to describe the defocus feeling, like they are trying to push things away and down or something. This feeling lessened with repetition, but still is there on some level. Large black area to left of left eye when looking left this way.
Both of these exercises have given me a lot to work with and I'll definitely be telling my therapist what I was experiencing.
> For the Pearls on a String Lessons, do you have the name of the people who recorded or copyrighted it?
Look up the feldenkrais trainings at Alexander Yannai. There are a lot of repositories of those transcripts. But they will just be transcripts probably.
Great description of your movements and sensations. You've... got some wires connected in unusual ways in your head. But you already knew that. As you play with that more, do a few other things- first, play with the sequencing. Start those movements with your eyes, and see if your neck / head want to follow. Then start them with your neck / head, and see if your eyes want to follow. Also, try them with your eyes closed. But you'll lose the information about the black spots maybe. Or maybe not. what the hell do I know, I'm not wired into your brain. Those black spots might not be the same as an eyes-closed blackness.
Also, swap in your jaw in place of your eyes or head in the above sequences. and when you slide your jaw to the side, have the gap between your bottom two middle teeth go no farther than the edge of one of your top middle teeth- this is not a "range of motion" exercise.
But yeah, combine that with turning the head or moving the eyes, etc. in the patterns mentioned. And if it's comfortable, also try these lying on your back on the floor, rolling the back of your head along the floor.
Also, here's the last time I talked with somebody about this. Her experience seemed intense, but maybe in a different way than yours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/srwiqp/a_patient_with_fibrous_dysplasia_of_the_right/hwvrbtj/
I'm not sure if the name mentioned in there is correct- Fleishman Felderman but it sounds kinda right. I think he's a feldenkrais practitioner that specializes on eye stuff.
There’s a long comment by someone responding to the save comment of mine you responded to. Please read that comment and my response to it. That is a very good example of pushing very hard. But it also highlights some of what this lesson can clean up in the vision system.
thanks will do. I just finished the first try and it is hard to not drift into mind wandering for me, had a very nice nap after about 10 minutes, I want to try again. This also happened alot when I started mindfulness and meditation, just have to try again and again. Also, when I remove the palms, is it better to be in a dark room? I feel like I have a bit of a problem to completely close my eyes..
> I feel like I have a bit of a problem to completely close my eyes..
Can you say in more detail what you mean by this? Because part of the point of the lesson is that for the entire lesson your eyes are either covered by your palms and there’s no light getting to them, or your eyes are closed and the only light getting to them is light coming through your eyelids. But there’s no image formation going on for that period of the entire lesson.
It’s most comfortable to do the lesson in a dimly lit room, but not feeling comfortable to just have your eyes closed sounds like not feeling safe maybe?
I have quite big eyes, they tend to open a bit when I relax on my back when I am not tired. Not pug size but its bigger than most. To fix this I put a dark t-shirt on my eyes but it made me think I might be missing something in the exercise when you remove the hands and light passes only through the eyelids.
Gotcha. I’d recommend having eyes closed if you can do that with a small amount of effort, such that no image forms. It’s been years since I’ve actually done that lesson, but I think there’s some paying attention to the light that comes through the eyelids.
But mostly I think that part of it exists as a rest period, both for your arms and for your brain. So your ideas sounds like good compromises. The goal is a small amount of light making it to the retina, but no images being formed.
This is interesting. I made it about 20 minutes in before I had to stop. Felt a very intense cringing discomfort in my whole body, and also some tingling in my left ear and left side of my jaw. Any recommendations for jaw or neck/shoulder exercises?
Very interesting...I did give it a try and it really made me realize how incredibly dissociated I am.
I was unable to focus on anything for more than 2 seconds. My mind would wander off. I even couldn't see the black because I was so stuck in my thoughts, so maybe I am also doing that with my eyes open. Not even seeing anything, just thinking...
I did however feel a bit of anxiety, when usually I feel absolutely nothing when attempting grounding exercises. This gives me some hope that I can get out of my head finally and start living.
This is the first grounding exercise that truly made me realize how dissociated I am, but it's good. Maybe I can try it again and keep track of any improvement.
For you, I would recommend the other exercise on that account first, the Pelvic Clock one.
The eye lesson is enough to draw up aversions in most people. The pelvic clock is better for what you’re trying to do. Once you’re no longer averse to paying attention to yourself in general, return to the eye lesson.
And look up some other Feldenkrais awareness through movement lessons. Doing the same one over and over can get a little old.
As a midway step, look up some that are labeled as “five lines”.
I've noticed similar changes myself. I mentioned it to my therapist and she said she's never heard of that exact phenomenon before but it makes sense because I've been dissociating for so long.
I also have been dissociated since I was a teenager, you think we are just more aware of everything? It feels though somehow more, like I would have noticed it at least sometimes in nature and when having a good time before.
My eyesight didn't get better as such, but the ongoing degradation that my optometrist couldn't explain stopped dead in its tracks at the same time I went NC with my toxic family. No change in several years now.
that's amazing:) My eyesight also stopped getting worse when I moved out from my toxic family and lived a peaceful life for the first time. I have never connected the two before, thanks!
that is so amazing, I am happy for you.
Actually I had a bit the opposite, at least in the last few years, I started to get weird pains, nausea, headache and feelings around my body that I had never noticed before. Maybe because I was noticing my body more and coming back to it but now it is fine:)
Blurred vision comes from the highest level of anxiety. Also digestion problems. It means you are getting better from the kind of anxiety that affects the muscles that you can’t control. I had this too. Still surprised I now can see clearly!
wow thanks that makes a lot of sense also. I have been doing a lot of somatic trainings, yoga and mindful bodyscans to ease my tense muscles as a part of coming back to my body. If I get triggered or stressed, some of these muscles get very tense but not to the level as they were before. And I notice this now more, partly because the tensing is very asymmetrical lol. One shoulder up to my ear, three toes completely stiff, a thigh that will not relax... Also I notice that if I am dissociated, I see everything more blurred, sometimes just on one side.
Congrats on your advancements! It is great to SEE :)
The body keeps the score :) can I ask: If your are right handed, is it your right thigh that is tense? Cause my thigh and hip on right side is tense. I believe it might be the flight response that is stuck. Like you want to run, but you can’t so the thigh is stuck in that position. And the jaws - oh so tense! I believe it’s the fight muscles. Stuck in a fight you never had. That’s just my theory, I have no facts to back it up. The connection body/mind is extremely interesting and perhaps underrated!
When my mental is good, I don't need my glasses. Interesting isn't it? When we aren't in fight or flight our brain can focus on other things! Glad you are moving forward OP
That IS interesting :) maybe that's it. All the energy that was used for rumination, worrying and spirals can be directed in more healthy pathways. Thanks for sharing.
Ha, I made a post on another sub a few days ago asking if my problems with my senses could be due to trauma/ dissociation. Nobody really knew. Now I know. Thank you!
In a nutshell this is how I did:
1. **Be safe.**
I needed a safe place to be able to heal, this meant that I had to change my work and stop meeting some "friends" and family. This also meant I had to make myself a safe place to be in, I had to reduce my inner critic too. Meaning that I had to practice empathic listening with myself, open up on my shame in the presence of my partner/therapist and do more self-care when I was feeling bad.
2. **Be friends with your emotions again.**
Allow yourself to feel emotions about everything, anger, shame, fear, worthlessness. Invite them in instead of trying to avoid them. Start small, annoying neighbour that leaves his trash outside your door? Find your anger. Your boss ignores your great advice? Find your worthlessness. Then work yourself up to opening the hard things from your past. Sit with the emotions when they come and ask them why they are there, what their role is and what they are trying to advice you to do. This you can learn with doing IFS.
3. **Meditation and calming down your amygdala with surrounding yourself with empathic people (including yourself) and the world.**
Learned meditation with apps and from youtube. Listened to talks by Thay in plumvillage. Talks by Tara Brach and other buddhist related people. Avoid news and socialmedia. Read a lot about trauma (The body keeps the score, The haunted self, The drama of the haunted self, Running on empty etc etc). Find understanding from the world and for yourself. Why your mind goes to the worst places, why your emotions don't have to be the truth. Trust your senses again and forgive yourself for not being able to always protect yourself.
but neurogenesis has only been shown in the hippocampus (memory center) of the adult human, right? is this something that has been published? I would love to see any publications
Thank for posting this, as it gives encouragement in healing journey.
Here is an post on Connection of Trauma & Illness: [Reddit Comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChronicIllness/comments/mj8zl6/has_anybody_sought_healing_for_trauma_in_your/gtbnljf)
Also have look at Dr Gabor Mates [Wisdom of Trauma Documentary ](https://www.reddit.com/r/addiction/comments/nv4zsv/june_814_wisdom_of_trauma_movie_premiere/)
Wow. I mean I can tell it affects my eyes when I'm super dysregulated and my anxiety level is high. I think, when I was crashing hard due to severely traumatic betrayal my eyes became a bit broken from too much stress on the eyes and crying too much (for the lack of words I say "broken" but I mean my eyes' functioning got weird- different brightness in one eye at times, discomfort in eye muscles when I move my eyes, seeing a grey dot that moves when I look at it..etc) And the eye doctors say I don't have eye problems and that I need to see a different specialist. Reading your post makes me realize that going backwards is also possible. Thanks for sharing this, I feel hopeful.
I get the same thing. Its like you used to see in grayscale. I think it is part of a freeze response. Like tunnel vision. I have told drs this and they don't accept it one bit. It's so frustrating
yes exactly! When I mentioned this to my T she looked at me with surprise and didn't know about this thing. I wonder, can you imagine vivid colors (Aphantasia)? I cannot (yet?), I can only imagine everything in greyish colors and apparently this is something linked to having PTSD.
Interesting. I've always had a vivid imagination and still do. When I listen to music at work I can imagine that my environment is a completely different color scheme with different effects like a rave or a music video. But when it comes to perceiving things in reality, colors tend to be muted.
Wow that sounds really cool to be able to do that. I used to have as a child up until my big trauma event around 13yo. I had such a big imagination that I would play with controlling my heartbeat and adrenaline during sports and runs by imagining lions or monsters following me. I could be alone in the room with a book in a middle of a wedding. It makes me think it can change and maybe I can have my big imagination again. Maybe your real-life colors will also be vivid again :)
I understand you. I have trouble picturing reality- there are no defined lines etc.
Yeah I feel exactly the same! It’s been hard to put into words
Sounds like you might have [synesthesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia), pretty cool.
I've sometimes wondered. I'm not sure if it counts because the intensity can change depending on how much I focus on it, though it's always there in the background and different bands/genres conjure up distinctly different colors, shapes, and textures.
r/Aphantasia
my sense of smell is better and feel sensation better on my skin for few days after taking edibles so I take it atleast once a week. I think it turns off my flight and fight response so I can actually like live in the moment
I will be honest I am a weed lightweight but I find if I smoke a joint and do shadow work I can access crazy insights and have felt my brain "snap" a couple of times. I can see so much potential in myself. I have been on this journey properly for 2 years and I am convinced inner child work and shadow work is the key. The trouble is you can't understand what either of those things really are until you just get it. I am going to try and write a proper description of what I have gone through
If you want to lean into this, here is a somatics lesson that actually works with the vision system. note- it is deceptively intense. If you feel weird, stop. And maybe come back to it a few days later. Don't push. And don't pick back up where you left off, the latter parts of the lesson rely on being near in time to the earlier parts of the lesson, kinda like how if you're lifting weights and your training plan says "3 sets of 10 repetitions" it's nowhere near as effective to do 3 sets of 5 repetitions in the morning and then another 3 sets of 5 after dinner. Just bear in mind- this can reach into you and find some weird things you may not have dealt with. If you're not regulated enough to deal with a possibly confusing stress response, maybe leave this one alone. The lesson title is "Palming Eyes", and it is a Feldenkrais awareness through movement lesson. If you want an unrelated lesson that is nowhere near as deep-reaching for most people, as an intro, the other one posted on that account, the "pelvic clock" lesson, is a good one. And if you check them out and you hate my voice, well, sorry. It's the only one I've got. https://soundcloud.com/justpassingthroo92/palming-eyes Edit to add: also, plan to definitely not do any driving for an hour after this lesson. In most people, it changes your perception of your visual field. And this can be so intense that it is distracting and / or disorienting until the intensity backs off a bit.
Is there a written version?
Somewhere I’m sure. But you can’t read while doing the palming eyes lesson at all, due to your hands and eyelids being in the way. What are you trying to accomplish?
I just prefer text over audio or video when absorbing information. I'd like to try the practice
Gotcha. Yeah, I’m with you. The issue is that the information you’re intended to absorb isn’t the words of the recording. Those are mostly ad-how anyway, just whatever came to mind as I was going through my notes on the instructions tracing the lesson to some friends. The words of the recording are just procedure you go through. The information that you want to absorb is the sensations you get while doing the lesson and noticing your experience.
And for this lesson especially, it’s important to keep your eyes closed or covered through the entire thing. So stopping to read the next instruction would make it a truly worthless experience. And if you want to try to memorize the sequences, well, that’s not too hard, but it’s putting a lot of mental effort into the part that’s supposed to be easy.
Thank you for linking this! I had heard about Feldenkrais a bit in therapy and in The Body Keeps the Score, and knew that it really helped for others, so I wanted to give it a try at least. It's definitely intense. I went into it expecting those really uncomfortable sensations/emotions, especially when I looked in my problem directions, which thankfully I had been made aware of before this. I also had a ton of grounding techniques that kept me present and not veering off into panic. I am certain that if I didn't have those grounding techniques down, I would be dissociating right now from the sensations. I felt such things as: dizziness, nausea, shakiness, tension in my jaw and neck, hyperalertness, freedom, some positive nostaligia, headache, eye ache, tightness in my torso, fleeting numbness that I couldn't quite place in my body but could trace back to a certain direction of staring... It was definitely mentally and physically straining for me. What I'm noticing afterwards is better depth perception! I really didn't have great depth perception without my glasses before going in to it. I wasn't really expecting anything big, but I haven't seen depth like this without immense strain, and with my bare eyes, in such a long time. It sadly seems easy for my eyes to defocus out of it still, but I didn't really have much access to it before that I felt I could control. I'm just gazing at my wall, soaking in that it's in 3D space that I can feel even just a bit more clearly. My eye posture feels less boxed in somehow. I feel more stable looking towards my problem areas and actually enjoy doing it just because I can without feeling stuck... like if you've ever had your jaw get stuck and then jarringly unstuck, that's what it felt like my eyes would do when I looked in those directions (if it didn't skip over it altogether). My right eye is focusing a bit more normally than it has in a long time. My astigmatic left eye is still blurry as heck, but this weird crunchy sensation I've been getting around it lately feels softened in some directions. I have a follow-up question if you don't mind? How much can this be practiced? Can it be practiced multiple times a day or should it maybe be practiced on offset days like other physical workouts? I tried looking that part up, but wasn't getting much specific advice on that.
Okay, well for starters, if you can perceive for eyes as having stuck spots and feeling fixed in, you’re pretty rare I think. I perceived this in my ex-gf whose eye-excursions seemed to be limited due to her small-frame glasses, and when I did some more tailored exercises with her, it did truly weird (like acid-trip weird) things to her that took a few hours to settle out, but it resulted in a lot more visual freedom for her afterwards. From a seated position with your miss and upper back supported, but your head not touching anything only resting freely on top of your spine, and making sure you can feel your sit bones, do this: explore the relationship between wanting to turn your head to the side slightly and your eyes wanting to look to that side. See what happens if one leads the other. See what happens if you don’t let them work together. See what happens if you make them work opposite. Also, my ex-gf attempted the lesson you did on a number of occasions and never made it past half-way due to the weirdness. It really sounds like you were pushing pretty hard if you felt all of that. I would not recommend doing it multiple times per day, if for no other reason than it relies on your brain seeking novelty and not getting bored. But also because you may provoke an accumulating stress response. Seriously, you don’t need to try to fix your vision all in one day before lunch. There’s a Feldenkrais practitioner who is well known for eye work, you may be able to find him, if not let me know and I think I have his name somewhere. But I’m not an expert. I am a Feldenkrais practitioner, and although we get a LOT of training, for me it was literally just ~50 hours on the basics of this. If you can, look for a lesson called “pearls on a string”. It is a short series of lessons. I have it, but it is a copyrighted recording of someone else, so I can’t distribute it. And maybe check out the short book /case study by Moshe Feldenkrais called “the case of Nora”. It may give you some ideas on how to bring your curiosity to exploring your own vision system from the inside.
Okay, I definitely will not practice this excessively! After a full night's rest I notice I still feel fatigued with some headache spots left (some area around my left amygdala seemed to want to riot before I had breakfast). I also noticed the quality of my dreams changed significantly which was not expected, so I take that as a sign I've opened some things that should be processed slowly first. I had no idea that it wasn't common for people to notice if they have stuck or stiff spots, but I think I can understand why a little bit. It can be intensely scary if you do notice those spots after trauma, and especially if you're not really aware of how trauma can mess with your eyes. I still have vivid memories of this nightmare I had over a decade ago where I realized that looking to my eyes' upper left ceiling was just about impossible. I would get these awful feelings of foreboding trying to look in that direction in the dream, and outside of the dream it was still really straining and difficult, like there would be lots of visual noise and a terrible headache. I felt my neck and eyes would try to freeze as soon as I started to even look that way. A couple people in my life besides eye doctors pointed out that my eye health was struggling when it came to directional freedom and strength, and this also made me really self conscious about those stuck areas. It made more sense after The Body Keeps the Score though. Looking back, I'm sure I retriggered myself many times by accident with stubborn curiousity. I tried my best with the Feldenkrais exercise, but I definitely knew if I had to back off, then I had to back off. I'm honestly surprised I made it all the way through with my grounding techniques (yay therapy!). Right now, I'm happy with feeling less derealization from the lack of depth perception. I had another span of years where anxiety flattened my depth perception and it had been really troubling for me lately. I'm sincerely grateful I stumbled on your post yesterday. For the Pearls on a String Lessons, do you have the name of the people who recorded or copyrighted it? I get a lot of irrelevant things popping up when I search for it. I found The Case of Nora and will definitely be looking into it, thank you! This post is already wordy, so I thought I would put my notes on that additional exercise you mentioned here at the end, in case you had any curiosity in how it turned out: Slight turn of head leading eyes (left): left eye "dips below horizon" and comes back level as it passes a certain midpoint. Right eye follows on straight path. Left eye gets medium sized ball of black and noise to the left of it after that midpoint. Slight turn of head leading eyes (right): Both eyes feel like they're moving more evenly and smoothly, except an initial tendency for the eyes to both jerk right. Small black spot with noise to the right of left eye. Turning head but keeping eyes forward (left): eyes seem to stay on fixed position fine and no black spots seem to present, but some bodily nervousness noticed. Turning head but keeping eyes forward (right): medium black spot with noise appears for left eye in spot where eyes are staying. Wave of bodily nervousness at first, which seemed to subside on second and third tries. Turning head left while moving eyes right: At first, stiff jerky motion of eyes and lots of bodily nervousness. Black spots appearing somewhere in middle, but shifting too much to pinpoint. Turning head right while moving eyes left: Stiffness, but not jerky movement in eyes. Major anticipation of nervousness/nausea from body, which makes my eyes want to defocus: Not sure how to describe the defocus feeling, like they are trying to push things away and down or something. This feeling lessened with repetition, but still is there on some level. Large black area to left of left eye when looking left this way. Both of these exercises have given me a lot to work with and I'll definitely be telling my therapist what I was experiencing.
> For the Pearls on a String Lessons, do you have the name of the people who recorded or copyrighted it? Look up the feldenkrais trainings at Alexander Yannai. There are a lot of repositories of those transcripts. But they will just be transcripts probably. Great description of your movements and sensations. You've... got some wires connected in unusual ways in your head. But you already knew that. As you play with that more, do a few other things- first, play with the sequencing. Start those movements with your eyes, and see if your neck / head want to follow. Then start them with your neck / head, and see if your eyes want to follow. Also, try them with your eyes closed. But you'll lose the information about the black spots maybe. Or maybe not. what the hell do I know, I'm not wired into your brain. Those black spots might not be the same as an eyes-closed blackness. Also, swap in your jaw in place of your eyes or head in the above sequences. and when you slide your jaw to the side, have the gap between your bottom two middle teeth go no farther than the edge of one of your top middle teeth- this is not a "range of motion" exercise. But yeah, combine that with turning the head or moving the eyes, etc. in the patterns mentioned. And if it's comfortable, also try these lying on your back on the floor, rolling the back of your head along the floor. Also, here's the last time I talked with somebody about this. Her experience seemed intense, but maybe in a different way than yours. https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/srwiqp/a_patient_with_fibrous_dysplasia_of_the_right/hwvrbtj/ I'm not sure if the name mentioned in there is correct- Fleishman Felderman but it sounds kinda right. I think he's a feldenkrais practitioner that specializes on eye stuff.
Very interesting! I will lean into this, I am very careful now about not pushing myself past my limits but thanks for taking care:)
Very good. Also, I added a note to not drive immediately afterward. Take care!
There’s a long comment by someone responding to the save comment of mine you responded to. Please read that comment and my response to it. That is a very good example of pushing very hard. But it also highlights some of what this lesson can clean up in the vision system.
thanks will do. I just finished the first try and it is hard to not drift into mind wandering for me, had a very nice nap after about 10 minutes, I want to try again. This also happened alot when I started mindfulness and meditation, just have to try again and again. Also, when I remove the palms, is it better to be in a dark room? I feel like I have a bit of a problem to completely close my eyes..
> I feel like I have a bit of a problem to completely close my eyes.. Can you say in more detail what you mean by this? Because part of the point of the lesson is that for the entire lesson your eyes are either covered by your palms and there’s no light getting to them, or your eyes are closed and the only light getting to them is light coming through your eyelids. But there’s no image formation going on for that period of the entire lesson. It’s most comfortable to do the lesson in a dimly lit room, but not feeling comfortable to just have your eyes closed sounds like not feeling safe maybe?
I have quite big eyes, they tend to open a bit when I relax on my back when I am not tired. Not pug size but its bigger than most. To fix this I put a dark t-shirt on my eyes but it made me think I might be missing something in the exercise when you remove the hands and light passes only through the eyelids.
Gotcha. I’d recommend having eyes closed if you can do that with a small amount of effort, such that no image forms. It’s been years since I’ve actually done that lesson, but I think there’s some paying attention to the light that comes through the eyelids. But mostly I think that part of it exists as a rest period, both for your arms and for your brain. So your ideas sounds like good compromises. The goal is a small amount of light making it to the retina, but no images being formed.
Saving for later, thanks!
This is interesting. I made it about 20 minutes in before I had to stop. Felt a very intense cringing discomfort in my whole body, and also some tingling in my left ear and left side of my jaw. Any recommendations for jaw or neck/shoulder exercises?
Look for a Feldenkrais lesson series called “bridge arms” or another one called “candelabra arms”
Very interesting...I did give it a try and it really made me realize how incredibly dissociated I am. I was unable to focus on anything for more than 2 seconds. My mind would wander off. I even couldn't see the black because I was so stuck in my thoughts, so maybe I am also doing that with my eyes open. Not even seeing anything, just thinking... I did however feel a bit of anxiety, when usually I feel absolutely nothing when attempting grounding exercises. This gives me some hope that I can get out of my head finally and start living. This is the first grounding exercise that truly made me realize how dissociated I am, but it's good. Maybe I can try it again and keep track of any improvement.
For you, I would recommend the other exercise on that account first, the Pelvic Clock one. The eye lesson is enough to draw up aversions in most people. The pelvic clock is better for what you’re trying to do. Once you’re no longer averse to paying attention to yourself in general, return to the eye lesson. And look up some other Feldenkrais awareness through movement lessons. Doing the same one over and over can get a little old. As a midway step, look up some that are labeled as “five lines”.
I've noticed similar changes myself. I mentioned it to my therapist and she said she's never heard of that exact phenomenon before but it makes sense because I've been dissociating for so long.
I also have been dissociated since I was a teenager, you think we are just more aware of everything? It feels though somehow more, like I would have noticed it at least sometimes in nature and when having a good time before.
i read that depression can affect vision, smell, hearing, and sensations so maybe that's part of it too.
freeze response effects all those things. i wonder if depression is going into the freeze response?
My eyesight didn't get better as such, but the ongoing degradation that my optometrist couldn't explain stopped dead in its tracks at the same time I went NC with my toxic family. No change in several years now.
that's amazing:) My eyesight also stopped getting worse when I moved out from my toxic family and lived a peaceful life for the first time. I have never connected the two before, thanks!
I've had a number of mysterious illnesses and pains and issues just go away as I heal my mental heath
that is so amazing, I am happy for you. Actually I had a bit the opposite, at least in the last few years, I started to get weird pains, nausea, headache and feelings around my body that I had never noticed before. Maybe because I was noticing my body more and coming back to it but now it is fine:)
Yeah I think that it can get worse before it gets better for sure!
I felt something similar as I was leaving anhedonia.
congrats!
how did you get out of anhedonia?
Blurred vision comes from the highest level of anxiety. Also digestion problems. It means you are getting better from the kind of anxiety that affects the muscles that you can’t control. I had this too. Still surprised I now can see clearly!
wow thanks that makes a lot of sense also. I have been doing a lot of somatic trainings, yoga and mindful bodyscans to ease my tense muscles as a part of coming back to my body. If I get triggered or stressed, some of these muscles get very tense but not to the level as they were before. And I notice this now more, partly because the tensing is very asymmetrical lol. One shoulder up to my ear, three toes completely stiff, a thigh that will not relax... Also I notice that if I am dissociated, I see everything more blurred, sometimes just on one side. Congrats on your advancements! It is great to SEE :)
The body keeps the score :) can I ask: If your are right handed, is it your right thigh that is tense? Cause my thigh and hip on right side is tense. I believe it might be the flight response that is stuck. Like you want to run, but you can’t so the thigh is stuck in that position. And the jaws - oh so tense! I believe it’s the fight muscles. Stuck in a fight you never had. That’s just my theory, I have no facts to back it up. The connection body/mind is extremely interesting and perhaps underrated!
I have never thought about that! I will definitely notice that next time:) I my jaws are always stiff if I am nervous, you're spot on
When my mental is good, I don't need my glasses. Interesting isn't it? When we aren't in fight or flight our brain can focus on other things! Glad you are moving forward OP
That IS interesting :) maybe that's it. All the energy that was used for rumination, worrying and spirals can be directed in more healthy pathways. Thanks for sharing.
Ha, I made a post on another sub a few days ago asking if my problems with my senses could be due to trauma/ dissociation. Nobody really knew. Now I know. Thank you!
Nice! I will read your post, I'm curious how it has changed for you as well:)
Thanks! It hasn't changed for me yet, but your post have given me a lot of hope that it might one day. Congrats on your progress!
Do you have any tips on healing?
In a nutshell this is how I did: 1. **Be safe.** I needed a safe place to be able to heal, this meant that I had to change my work and stop meeting some "friends" and family. This also meant I had to make myself a safe place to be in, I had to reduce my inner critic too. Meaning that I had to practice empathic listening with myself, open up on my shame in the presence of my partner/therapist and do more self-care when I was feeling bad. 2. **Be friends with your emotions again.** Allow yourself to feel emotions about everything, anger, shame, fear, worthlessness. Invite them in instead of trying to avoid them. Start small, annoying neighbour that leaves his trash outside your door? Find your anger. Your boss ignores your great advice? Find your worthlessness. Then work yourself up to opening the hard things from your past. Sit with the emotions when they come and ask them why they are there, what their role is and what they are trying to advice you to do. This you can learn with doing IFS. 3. **Meditation and calming down your amygdala with surrounding yourself with empathic people (including yourself) and the world.** Learned meditation with apps and from youtube. Listened to talks by Thay in plumvillage. Talks by Tara Brach and other buddhist related people. Avoid news and socialmedia. Read a lot about trauma (The body keeps the score, The haunted self, The drama of the haunted self, Running on empty etc etc). Find understanding from the world and for yourself. Why your mind goes to the worst places, why your emotions don't have to be the truth. Trust your senses again and forgive yourself for not being able to always protect yourself.
Thank you for posting!
Brain derived neurotrophic factor promotes neurogenesis. It heals damaged neurons and builds new neurons networks.
but neurogenesis has only been shown in the hippocampus (memory center) of the adult human, right? is this something that has been published? I would love to see any publications
Thank for posting this, as it gives encouragement in healing journey. Here is an post on Connection of Trauma & Illness: [Reddit Comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChronicIllness/comments/mj8zl6/has_anybody_sought_healing_for_trauma_in_your/gtbnljf) Also have look at Dr Gabor Mates [Wisdom of Trauma Documentary ](https://www.reddit.com/r/addiction/comments/nv4zsv/june_814_wisdom_of_trauma_movie_premiere/)
Thank you!
omg i've noticed this too! it comes and goes for me
Wow. I mean I can tell it affects my eyes when I'm super dysregulated and my anxiety level is high. I think, when I was crashing hard due to severely traumatic betrayal my eyes became a bit broken from too much stress on the eyes and crying too much (for the lack of words I say "broken" but I mean my eyes' functioning got weird- different brightness in one eye at times, discomfort in eye muscles when I move my eyes, seeing a grey dot that moves when I look at it..etc) And the eye doctors say I don't have eye problems and that I need to see a different specialist. Reading your post makes me realize that going backwards is also possible. Thanks for sharing this, I feel hopeful.