Perception and physical vision

[keokutah]

Is our physical vision ever accurate? or is it controlled by perception? Have you ever realized that what you see physically changes depending on your mood?

Have you ever wondered if what you're seeing is exactly the same as what everyone else is seeing?

Most people in a group can agree that they see each other. So how can some people go completely unnoticed? And if you ask all those people to describe the details of an incident, it will always be slightly different.

Have you ever witnessed people describing someone else's appearance as completely different than what you see?
That happens all the time to me, and sometimes I'm just like, "are you seeing what I'm seeing?".

edit : is this for real? https://www.2knowmyself.com/5_reasons_a_mirror_cant_really_tell_you_how_you_lo ok_like

https://www.2knowmyself.com/how_your_beliefs_and_concerns_affect_your_percepti on

[Carnate]

There's many layers to this.. and it's going to be a bit convoluted to explain in any detail. So I'll try to be brief.

Regarding the links... they're fairly accurate for the most part. There's a lot more to it.. but as I said, I'm trying to be brief... Our brains are wired to interpret visual information in terms of lines, curves, angles, and colours. It doesn't process the entire picture.. it processes each and every line, curve, angle, and the separating colours. It pieces all this information together to create what appears to be a 3d world.. or canvas. But really, it's just light (photon) information that needs to be interpreted before being assembled in a way we can consciously comprehend. We only 'see' that light information that reaches our brains.. so unless you are able to see additional light frequencies, you're going to see the same as everyone else. And I'm saying this because some people here are likely to be able to see auras or spirits.. or similar.

Each person's brain interprets visual stimuli in the same way. There has been some research into interpreting brain signals and recreating (from neural activity) the images that people see. What's relevant here, is that when you hook one person up to the machine it'll produce a replica of what he's looking at. With the same machine and a different person (minimal calibration of the machine), it will interpret the same image in the same way as the first person. Which is to say, when I see the colour red, it's the same red that you or anyone else sees (assuming they're not colour blind).

When people describe events differently, it's mostly due to differences in memory. When people remember details, they're not technically 'remembering', they're recreating those images according to how readily their synapses fire; which is to say, the synapses that are more active are more likely to respond and provide their interpretation of what happened. If I work for the police, my brain is going to be wired a certain way, and the synapses that are linked to my profession are more likely to fire when I remember an event.

This means that people's personality, lifestyle, profession, and mood play a big role in how someone 'remembers' events.

[lemex]

Is our physical vision ever accurate? or is it controlled by perception? Have you ever realized that what you see physically changes depending on your mood?

Have you ever wondered if what you're seeing is exactly the same as what everyone else is seeing?





I certainly know it is possible for 2 people to observe (look) the same object and remove the object and after removing it describe it differently and the object is not physically different, before or after. It does not physically change.

I play this computer game and frequently there comes a time I believe I am finished and can't see any other move, yet the game will not end so I know there's another move to be made.

I know it because the game doesn't end and only because it doesn't end am I certain there is another move to make, something I missed. Here I'm thinking knowledge is important. Sometimes I get a little frustrated that I search over the board and won't see it. Of course if I walk away and return I can see the move. But before seeing it I felt so sure about it and had all the information to decide and made the correct decision to quit if it wasn't for the programmer. I still bypass getting all the information, how two people can look at the same exact object and still see it differently by feeling differently. And it's only when it can be proven do we see it.

But regarding perception. I had the case to think about sometime the other day. It was about the emotion of anger. How when a person gets so much anger they will say I don't care. That the perception anger brings is the person knows some truth now but says I don't care if it is, I won't listen. I know in a way I do get upset I don't see something and would have walked away thinking I was right. The perception I had was an illusion which I never saw until the advent of this game. The object does not change. The object is but an image, an electrical impulse as said, of angles and shadow, and of lines of light. We often decide on patterns we reassemble to complete the picture.

Science has also shown, the picture effect isn't a single image but each side of the brain sees it differently. The image is put together, maybe there is an aspect of why difference exists when we complete the pattern ourselves.

[keokutah]

That has happened to me plenty of times while playing games. When I'm certain of things, I see it that way.
These things are making me question my reality and everything I see lol. I wonder just how much perception influences our vision, because I remember back in the day when I had anorexia (it is common for guys too) I literally saw myself as a normal to chubby weight. I started trying to lose weight and was thinking, why am I not getting any results? Then people started complimenting me, saying they noticed, and I didn't believe them, I was like, who told you I was trying to lose weight lol. I thought it was a conspiracy. And eventually there came a point when I lost too much weight and people were no longer complimenting it, they became very worried, so I heard about it all the time even from complete strangers. But I did not see what they saw. Literally, I saw something completely different in the mirror.
I'm not sure if they've really looked into what causes that kind of "hallucination" if that's what it is, but it's scary. How could I literally see myself as physically different? I look back at pictures now, and I see how I was, and that's not what I saw at the time at all.
Is that body dysmorphia or literally just a weird case of perception forcing me to see something that other people don't see? Is that the brain just getting used to seeing something a certain way, so that it overrides what you truly see?

Because when I read about body dysmorphia, they say it's literally just people who exaggerate certain flaws on their body, but that's now how it was, I literally saw myself as looking entirely different. And when I first recovered from anorexia it was just as bad, I didn't recognize myself at all and there are times now where I still don't recognize myself. But I can at different times in the day, catch glimpses of myself and I will look absoluetly different each time. I'm just like, who's that? It freaks me out sometimes lol.

Now I'm a big guy, muscular, not fat. I know that is the case just because of the size of clothes I wear. To be honest I'm not sure if I can trust my eyes or other people's eyes. But I heavy weight lift and eat a ton so you'd think I would be muscular, but sometimes now I get the opposite problem where I feel like I'm too small, or maybe I look too weak and not fit enough, and then I actually see that, when other people are complimenting on how buff I look.

What weirds me out about this is that it's not the first time I've felt distrust over my vision. Back when I was a kid I was born with double vision, it was bad enough that they had to surgically correct it.
But I remember as a boy trying to explain to my mom what I saw, because I guessed that I wasn't seeing what everyone else was seeing. It was difficult, because usually parent's want to just agree that what you're seeing is accurate, but eventually she realized I was describing seeing two of everything, and that wasn't normal. I was smart enough to eventually realize that no one else saw things that way.

Anyway, I feel that way now again (feeling like I'm seeing things differently, literally) although I don't know if it's a physical vision problem. I'm not about to rule that out though. It's not like I have the best vision in the world, I honestly should be wearing glasses but I refuse to lol but I can see and I am a painter who paints what I see. People have given me all sorts of compliments on my art and have bought my art so I think what I see is accurate enough lol. But... then I wonder. I feel like one piece I did was realistic and someone else told me it reminded them of surrealism, that's the complete opposite of what I was going for LOL.

Does it really matter how others percieve my art though, I don't know. I've looked at art that others think is hideous and I've found it to be beautiful.

But it can't just be me having problems viewing myself, because everyone I meet tends to comment on my appearance and they all describe me differently, so then I don't know whose description to trust. And every time I hear someone describe someone else's appearance I'm just like, that is NOT what I am seeing. The other night someone at badminton said, "who was that guy with the white hair?"
There is NO guy there with white hair! I have no idea who they were talking about.

What's odd is that my mood greatly influences what I see, especially when I view myself. If I feel good about myself, I look good. If I feel unhealthy or down then i look bad.

Sometimes I swear that my face looks deformed or distorted, and once I realized a filter on my phone was causing that so it was real that one time, and I'm sure many mirrors and cameras can actually distort things too.

And it wouldn't confuse me if it was subtle differences, but these aren't subtle differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_processing_abnormalities_in_schizophrenia

So I'm curious about hallucinations. Back in the day I was diagnosed with psychosis, but that just includes delusions, they never suspected I was hallucinating or anything, and from what I can tell I don't think I am, it's not like I see people who aren't there lol. Well unless you count my spirit guides but that's treading into different territory, not that I don't believe that spirituality and mental illness aren't closely entwined, because I do believe they are very connected.
But then I read that wikipedia description and that definitely sounds like what I'm experiencing, but then it also sounds like what everyone else is experiencing. Is it just a common phenomena for people to see people or things differently?
Because there can be a group of people, and they will all have different descriptions of one person, maybe a few of them will agree, which might create the majority, but the rest can't agree on one thing. And I'm not just talking about attractions, everyone knows that everyone is attracted to different things, but it really seems like some people see things on people that are not there.

But anyway I have major face blindness. In public I won't even recognize someone I know very closely, and I've lost friends because of that. They're like "why did you just ignore me in public" I litereally don't recognize them and sometimes I've seen strangers that do look like people I might know and it freaks me out because I think it might actually be them but I literally can't tell, how contradicting and ironic is that. So maybe that's part of my issue perceiving things.

[keokutah]

I've been working on my confidence issues lately, well obviously I've been unconfident for my entire life, but overcoming my intimacy problems opened doors to help me overcome what I'm working on right now. Lack of confidence in myself might be the biggest issue I struggled with in my life, and I thought abandonment/fear of intimacy was big lol.

I'm not sure if anyone here even follows my threads, so in case anyone is reading this, not too long ago I did a past life regression, where I remembered a life that I had commit suicide due to a break up - obviously I was depressed before the breakup but as I died I basically vowed to never love again and that is what caused my intimacy problems and abandonment issues in this life. Because it was left unresolved. So after working on that, I solved my fear of intimacy and abandonment issues.

Not too long after that, a stranger contacted me out of the blue, wanting to give me a bunch of money just to support my artwork and writing, and he looked exactly like a person in that past life. And when I told my parent's about all the money he sent me, they were suspicious and implied my artwork wasn't good enough to have someone randomly give me money without buying anything (I don't think they really meant it that way) but ever since my confidence derailed itself, which is very ironic because this fan of mine is very supportive and has since proven that they don't have any hidden agenda. Anyway, I used to think I was just unconfident with my appearance, but I've realized it goes a lot deeper than that. I know that sounds stupid but I truly used to think I was confident in my art and other talents, but recently I've realized that is not the case either.
Anyway with all the work I've been doing on becoming authentic to myself and living the life I desire, I feel like it's important to work on my confidence issues, which brought up this question about my distorted vision of myself and others and perception.

I had this gnawing feeling that this issue (lack of confidence) also stems from a past life. I don't believe it stemmed from the eating disorder, because I was unconfident long before that manifested itself. Obviously, the eating disorder made it a lot worse.

Anyways, so I just did a quick past life regression with the intention of seeing where my issues come from, and sure enough, it comes from a past life.

All I've remembered so far is I was looking down at a pond, at my reflection in the water.

I could see my face in the water, but the water was rippling so my reflection looked a little distorted.

Then all of a sudden these big gray arms and hands came out from under the water and pulled me under. I drowned. Well, someone drowned me.

The reason their arms and hands were gray is because they were covered in clay, sort of like a warrior disgusing himself or something. They were breathing underwater through a reed/straw of some sort.

But I remember the fleeting thoughts and feelings I had, and I can understand why that created body image problems in this life.

Because the last thing I saw before I was murdered was my face, a very distorted image of my face in the reflection of the water, and I was feeling extremely hated and I didn't understand why I was being murdered and I felt this extreme feeling of identiy confusion, like "I thought I was special and loved, so why am I being murdered like I am worthless?" and that is where it all comes from...

I'm trying to remember more about that life and trying to figure out how to deal with it now. Lots of past life stuff coming up for me lately.

I remember seeing his face. He was standing up on the bank and I'm pretty sure we were strangers but I trusted him, I think I saw a fishing rod of some sort and went to approach him.
Then he looked at me with these intense eyes, and he's got clay all over him, and he's wearing a loin cloth I think, then he steps down into the water and goes under with that reed thing, and I'm all confused, like what's going on?
So then I go over there and peer down into the water, like what is he doing?

I'm not sure if this life was in olden times or if we were just weird mountain men survivalist type people lol.
But I recall having my soul mate in that life, we were nomadic and lived in tree huts and traveled by foot through forests and what not. Before I was murdered by some weirdo covered in clay.
Kind of interesting because I was really into wilderness survival and stuff like that in this life, I haven't really been into it in the last couple years though.

[Lorelyen]

Is our physical vision ever accurate? or is it controlled by perception? Have you ever realized that what you see physically changes depending on your mood?

Have you ever wondered if what you're seeing is exactly the same as what everyone else is seeing?The same phenomenon is out there but its interpretation is individual. As Paul Foster Case said, "Most people never really see. They look at things but what they think they see is modified by what they think they know." I tend to that view which in some ways explains your further observation..........
Most people in a group can agree that they see each other. So how can some people go completely unnoticed? And if you ask all those people to describe the details of an incident, it will always be slightly different.

Have you ever witnessed people describing someone else's appearance as completely different than what you see?
That happens all the time to me, and sometimes I'm just like, "are you seeing what I'm seeing?".
........]

I try to be a "fair witness". If asked, describe only what I saw as if I was a video camera. No embellishments, no interpretive commentary.


♥

[naturesflow]

Is our physical vision ever accurate? or is it controlled by perception? Have you ever realized that what you see physically changes depending on your mood?

Have you ever wondered if what you're seeing is exactly the same as what everyone else is seeing?

Most people in a group can agree that they see each other. So how can some people go completely unnoticed? And if you ask all those people to describe the details of an incident, it will always be slightly different.

Have you ever witnessed people describing someone else's appearance as completely different than what you see?
That happens all the time to me, and sometimes I'm just like, "are you seeing what I'm seeing?".

edit : is this for real? https://www.2knowmyself.com/5_reasons_a_mirror_cant_really_tell_you_how_you_lo ok_like

https://www.2knowmyself.com/how_your_beliefs_and_concerns_affect_your_percepti on


We see what we see but we can see what others see by seeing it. If we cant then there is always potential to see it there way. And if you cant then it might just mean you cant "yet". Awareness is a shifting changing view. I suppose just being open to what is there can potentially shift your perspective and view when your ready.

When I worked in early childhood, doing the regular observations with children for programming and planning, the process in this way taught me a valuable lesson for later on. Write what you see more directly. Getting "you" out of the way of what was occurring as it was..Mirroring the exact view as the one experiencing it experiences it. You can model this into all life..:wink:

[keokutah]

I'm sort of getting off topic here, doing more past life regression, but I thought it would be pointless to create another thread.
When I went back to try and look at more of the life I was talking about before, my spirit guide intervened and took me to another life. That's where my fear comes from. I think I have to deal with that one before I can deal with the life that gave me confidence issues.

Anyway, it's not exactly the lives that gave me unresolved problems, it's the way I died in both.
In this new life I remembered, I fell off a cliff, which wasn't too high, but it badly damaged my knees and legs and I couldn't walk. I died a very slow and painful death, and I was very angry at my higher power and not ready to die. It was a tragic accident and I died very bitter and afraid, but most importantly I died feeling like everyone and everything let me down, and vowed that I would never trust in a higher power ever again, because I felt alone, and that's where my fear and issues trusting in the divine plan stems from. I'm sure many people have died similar deaths.

After I died, I was at peace and it was spiritual and I had the choice to work on the issues or just continue to feel at peace and move on without dealing with it, and I chose not to deal with it, which is why I'm having to deal with it now.

It's brought up a lot of questions and it was an emotional experience. My spirit guide says that of course that part of me feels let down, and like God betrayed me and didn't care enough to save me, and it was a terrible experience, and that unfortunately accidents do happen and sometimes our spirit guides cannot intervene. Sometimes they can, but sometimes they can't. I don't quite understand that.

I guess right now I just have to sit with it for awhile until I can reach a place of forgiveness and let go of what happened. I still wish I could understand why life can be so unfair.

[naturesflow]

I'm sort of getting off topic here, doing more past life regression, but I thought it would be pointless to create another thread.
When I went back to try and look at more of the life I was talking about before, my spirit guide intervened and took me to another life. That's where my fear comes from. I think I have to deal with that one before I can deal with the life that gave me confidence issues.

Anyway, it's not exactly the lives that gave me unresolved problems, it's the way I died in both.
In this new life I remembered, I fell off a cliff, which wasn't too high, but it badly damaged my knees and legs and I couldn't walk. I died a very slow and painful death, and I was very angry at my higher power and not ready to die. It was a tragic accident and I died very bitter and afraid, but most importantly I died feeling like everyone and everything let me down, and vowed that I would never trust in a higher power ever again, because I felt alone, and that's where my fear and issues trusting in the divine plan stems from. I'm sure many people have died similar deaths.

After I died, I was at peace and it was spiritual and I had the choice to work on the issues or just continue to feel at peace and move on without dealing with it, and I chose not to deal with it, which is why I'm having to deal with it now.

It's brought up a lot of questions and it was an emotional experience. My spirit guide says that of course that part of me feels let down, and like God betrayed me and didn't care enough to save me, and it was a terrible experience, and that unfortunately accidents do happen and sometimes our spirit guides cannot intervene. Sometimes they can, but sometimes they can't. I don't quite understand that.

I guess right now I just have to sit with it for awhile until I can reach a place of forgiveness and let go of what happened. I still wish I could understand why life can be so unfair.


Some questions can never give you direct answers. It becomes more an awareness of life within a greater picture of itself playing out. We can learn through what is, let go and deepen more open and aware to what is. All the while life never giving reason to itself as it is, just the awareness we know life exists in so many ways.

I see spirit interventions much like real life interventions. We find what we need at those intersecting points of where we are in ourselves. Sometimes we have to experience things alone to learn and grow without support, to open and experience things in other ways. Everything we walk through becomes our own interconnected relationship to not only ourselves but to something greater. Your experiences from the past to this point right now, supporting not only yourself but the whole as one source together. Life creates us, experiences shape us, releasing all that can open new life in new ways, with more choices, more open and aware of life and how we can be. Awareness/clarity completes the picture, yet awareness and clarity is not the complete picture. Continual life presents us with more life and experiences so best find your centre to manage life as it lands..

[keokutah]

Thank you, that definitely resonates with me.
Yup, my spirit guide said basically the same thing, it's just a part of life. These experiences are helping me grow.

Well I remembered more about that life not too long ago and it was probably the most intense past life regression I've ever done.

I was totally wrong about it being an accident, I didn't just slip and fall off the cliff, I literally ran and jumped off of it because I was kind of insane and was trying to test my faith, I thought my higher power wouldn't let me fall, or I was trying to force my higher power to intervene, and it never did and that's why I felt so betrayed by my higher power as I died.
I remember feeling so awful when I realized I was wrong, and I was embarassed enough to drag myself away from the cliff so that if anyone did find me they wouldn't know I had been stupid enough to jump. It took me a really long time to die because no one did find me and I was devastated.

Anyway, I let go of that life earlier, and moved on, and felt really amazing after that. It made me feel very grateful to be alive.
I was reliving that life so much that I realized my legs were no longer broken and I have been given this second chance, I have a new body that I need to take care of. I felt alone because I knew no one would come to look for me so I would die there. I had lived in this village but I had run away, and was miserable always searching for some kind of spirituality, but I ended up getting into really evil spiritual practices and stuff and losing my way, I was grasping at straws in that life to become more spiritual but instead I became very lost, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
It was my choices that brought me there, because I chose to run away and ditch everyone, I chose to get lost and I chose to become obsessed with this "sacred" place up on the cliff and I chose to jump. I wasn't suicidal that time, I just lost my mind and it was my disconnection from source and not thinking clearly that drove me to test my faith.
I died feeling like no one cared, not even God, but the truth is I was the one who made those choices, and that is free will. And unfortunately with free will, we can make negative choices and positive choices.
But I am spiritual in this life though there have been times when I've doubted my faith and tried to ask for proof or signs and got angry when I got hurt or my spirit guides wouldn't intervene, but this lesson taught me to take responsibility for my actions and my choices, and to realize that sometimes my spirit guides just can't intervene, and it's not their fault, it's not anyone's fault, sometimes bad things just happen, and that is a good reason to be grateful for every fortunate day you are alive.

I have come to terms with the fact that holding an awareness of free will and the dangers it could have is actually a wise thing, but it is not good to live in fear of life. And I was afraid of life before this.

After my awareness of that life, I let it completely consume me for probably an hour, I cried and mourned it and worked through all the emotions that came up, and I really thought it was going to take me a long time to overcome it since it was so intense but after about an hour I was over it, I just came to this state of mind where I wanted to let go of that life and start anew and be grateful for what I had in this life and take the lessons I learned with me and never make the same mistake again, which was an important highlight. I am not making the same mistakes again lol. I feel pretty confident that I won't since I've come such a long way. I haven't had enough time to tell if this has helped my fears yet, but weirdly enough my confidence has been lifted a lot after this, inner confidence and even outer confidence, so I guess maybe it is related to that other life where I had confidence issues. I still think I probably have a lot more work to do, but I am defiintely making a lot of progress. And I think my confidence issues probably stemmed from this life first and carried over into that other life, then manifested pretty badly in this life as the eating disorder, but obviously i didn't trust myself (because I made a terrible judgement call that ended my life) and I didn't trust my higher power, or life in general, so in a way that IS a lack of confidence. And after remebering all of that I feel way more confident now.

Mybe my vision was so distorted because I never trusted myself to see things correctly. Because I looked at myself in the mirror tongiht after that and it was a positive experience almost like I was seeing myself for the first time, or in a new light.