DISCLAIMER: This is not the proper update I promised
. . .And neither is it at all good. But here it is anyway:
One time, shortly after I’d stopped believing in god, but before I’d mustered enough courage to stop serving at my local church (which I only ever started doing because I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘no, I don’t want to throw away all my Sunday mornings doing something other than sleeping’), it was somewhat hot. Shortly before leaving for church I’d realised I was wearing a T-shirt which would probably offend certain religious types, so I quickly put on a jumper. This was a mistake. Throughout the service I felt increasingly ill until eventually, whilst arsing around with a candle, I suddenly lost my vision. It couldn’t really be described as blackness; more a giant blind spot which had grown to consume my entire field of vision. I actually suspected that I was dying. I wasn’t really scared, but a little disappointed. Anyway, I was meant to be walking behind some ponce, but not being able to see that he’d started walking, I stayed where I was. People evidently cottoned on that something wasn’t quite right, and I was taken outside. After some time my vision returned. Since then I’ve occasionally suffered a very brief recurrence of this, particularly in hot weather and when standing up suddenly. I will not be able to see anything for a few seconds and will feel a little dizzy.
I’m not sure if this is common. If so, this must all be very dull. On the off-chance that it isn’t, I shall continue. Today it’s been very sunny. I find excessive sunniness quite annoying, especially when the sunlight that gets around the edges of the blind falls on my computer’s monitor, for obvious reasons. This was happening when it suddenly went overcast. I was initially pleased, but then I realised I could barely see anything, and had a strange sort of pressure feeling in my head. A similar ailment to that above.
And there is one more manifestation: A year or so ago, when I was staring at my glorious face in the mirror, it suddenly got darker outside, and whilst it would be expected that parts of my face would fall into greater shadow, this seemed to occur to a degree greater than might be expected. Through some experimentation, I found that if I stared at one point and relaxed my eyes (isn’t that what you’re meant to do with those 3D picture things I could never get the hang of?), other parts of my face would gradually fall into a flat grey shadow, until only the part I was focusing on was still visible. It’s quite hard to reach quite that degree because the eyes have a natural tendency to flit around the place, but when actually done properly the effect is quite strange. To be looking at my own face but to have it disappear into shadow is more than a little unsettling. The same thing could probably be done with anything else you might be looking at, but I happened to discover it whilst gazing vainly at myself, and I found the ensuing effect quite profound, somehow. I’m almost certain it has to do with the relatively small area of concentrated cones in the centre of the eye, which are what allow the detection of colour, as opposed to the higher density of movement-detecting rods around the outside of the eye (which is why you see movement from the ’corner’ of your eye) – I remember doing a test in a textbook where there was a cross shape formed by letters and you were instructed to focus your eyes on the centre letter and see how far outwards you could read. The best I could manage were the letters immediately adjacent, if that. The point of the experiment was to demonstrate how much your eyes move and how much your brain fills in itself. This is the same effect, but in this context it was completely unexpected, and as such came as such a surprise. I wonder if it has anything to do with the other things mentioned above. Anyway, give it a go. I dare you.
I’m not sure what the purpose of this entry is. It wasn’t to patronise those of us with a GCSE Biology education. I’m sorry for blabbering inexpertly about facts that you already know. I know that there will be plenty of people out there who don’t know these things, though, and it is my mission to enlighten these morons. No wait, it isn’t. It’s my mission to insult them. With this in mind, may I inform those of you which did not already know the above that they are complete imbeciles who should probably not be allowed into the same communities as the rest of us. Thanks!
Really, what the fuck am I talking about? Jesus. . .
[Show more]
One time, shortly after I’d stopped believing in god, but before I’d mustered enough courage to stop serving at my local church (which I only ever started doing because I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘no, I don’t want to throw away all my Sunday mornings doing something other than sleeping’), it was somewhat hot. Shortly before leaving for church I’d realised I was wearing a T-shirt which would probably offend certain religious types, so I quickly put on a jumper. This was a mistake. Throughout the service I felt increasingly ill until eventually, whilst arsing around with a candle, I suddenly lost my vision. It couldn’t really be described as blackness; more a giant blind spot which had grown to consume my entire field of vision. I actually suspected that I was dying. I wasn’t really scared, but a little disappointed. Anyway, I was meant to be walking behind some ponce, but not being able to see that he’d started walking, I stayed where I was. People evidently cottoned on that something wasn’t quite right, and I was taken outside. After some time my vision returned. Since then I’ve occasionally suffered a very brief recurrence of this, particularly in hot weather and when standing up suddenly. I will not be able to see anything for a few seconds and will feel a little dizzy.
I’m not sure if this is common. If so, this must all be very dull. On the off-chance that it isn’t, I shall continue. Today it’s been very sunny. I find excessive sunniness quite annoying, especially when the sunlight that gets around the edges of the blind falls on my computer’s monitor, for obvious reasons. This was happening when it suddenly went overcast. I was initially pleased, but then I realised I could barely see anything, and had a strange sort of pressure feeling in my head. A similar ailment to that above.
And there is one more manifestation: A year or so ago, when I was staring at my glorious face in the mirror, it suddenly got darker outside, and whilst it would be expected that parts of my face would fall into greater shadow, this seemed to occur to a degree greater than might be expected. Through some experimentation, I found that if I stared at one point and relaxed my eyes (isn’t that what you’re meant to do with those 3D picture things I could never get the hang of?), other parts of my face would gradually fall into a flat grey shadow, until only the part I was focusing on was still visible. It’s quite hard to reach quite that degree because the eyes have a natural tendency to flit around the place, but when actually done properly the effect is quite strange. To be looking at my own face but to have it disappear into shadow is more than a little unsettling. The same thing could probably be done with anything else you might be looking at, but I happened to discover it whilst gazing vainly at myself, and I found the ensuing effect quite profound, somehow. I’m almost certain it has to do with the relatively small area of concentrated cones in the centre of the eye, which are what allow the detection of colour, as opposed to the higher density of movement-detecting rods around the outside of the eye (which is why you see movement from the ’corner’ of your eye) – I remember doing a test in a textbook where there was a cross shape formed by letters and you were instructed to focus your eyes on the centre letter and see how far outwards you could read. The best I could manage were the letters immediately adjacent, if that. The point of the experiment was to demonstrate how much your eyes move and how much your brain fills in itself. This is the same effect, but in this context it was completely unexpected, and as such came as such a surprise. I wonder if it has anything to do with the other things mentioned above. Anyway, give it a go. I dare you.
I’m not sure what the purpose of this entry is. It wasn’t to patronise those of us with a GCSE Biology education. I’m sorry for blabbering inexpertly about facts that you already know. I know that there will be plenty of people out there who don’t know these things, though, and it is my mission to enlighten these morons. No wait, it isn’t. It’s my mission to insult them. With this in mind, may I inform those of you which did not already know the above that they are complete imbeciles who should probably not be allowed into the same communities as the rest of us. Thanks!
Really, what the fuck am I talking about? Jesus. . .
[Show more]
posted at 19:31
8 Comments:
no man thats pretty interesting what you are talking about. Means I have a little bit more of an insight into the craziness that is Jams :). I occasionally have very brief "black outs" when I get up too quickly in the mornings when my vision completely goes for a few seconds. Yet what you have seems to be a little bit more extreme than that. To be fair dude I never realised that you were a Christian and weren't a god damned atheist like me all your life. I will definitely have to try out your technique at some time sounds pretty interesting. What I do love those is how you can make your vision go really weird either by focusing on something really intensely or by allowing it to filter all around the place and you see little blobs move all round the place, its pretty cool. Probably very common to most people but still it keeps me entertained. So I assume that this incident in part as led to your dislike of sun weather, I was curious I assumed that you were naturally rather sun shy/ noctural and felt the sunlight to be unpleasant. Rather like in the vein of vampire the masquerade "It burns it burns" (the sunlight). Haha if I kept on going I could even rival you for quantity in your blog, I'm sure that I could but then again I wouldn't want to steal your thunder, especially when I get to read these entries most days. In fact your blog entries are starting to become my new internet obession along with Rome Total War Heaven and Grouphug.us.
No, I disliked the sun years before then. No logical explanation here! I do remember saying something to you when we were quite a lot younger assuming (as I did of everyone at the time) that you believed in god. You said that you didn’t, which surprised and confused me. But that was a long time ago, so I’m not surprised that you don’t remember it. Anyway, it’s a somewhat shameful part of my life which I want to put firmly behind me. And do you still visit grouphug.us with frequency? If so, don’t you feel significantly less sane? I mean, I read it for a while, and I might pop back every now and then if I’m particularly bored, but reading too much tends to either depress me or make me feel quite peculiar.
James, i think you should probably have an eye test, just in case.
[Originally posted 02:02 01/06/2005]
I tend to go through phases of reading lots of grouphug, but as you said it is depressing and makes me despair about the human race. It can be quite good and entertaining at times but I tend to read Rome Total War Heaven far more often, well about six times a day. It was quite upsetting day when I discovered that the forums were down. Did you like my reference to vampire the masquerade in my first comment? I might have had a brief argument with you about god or the after life a long time time ago I seem to remember very vaguely
I’ve had eye tests for my glasses since. I think I’m probably just dying. Dan, I used to be fairly addicted to fora. It’s not healthy. Then again, neither is my current lifestyle. So Total War away! And yes, your Vampire reference was greatly appreciated. I don’t think I’ll be framing it and putting it on my wall, though.
Just thought i'd pop by, cos it's 4.36am and other people would think i'm weird posting on their spaces at this hour, but i know you'd think it was normal-ish. Yeah, that was it really... :/ Miss Nightowl x
Pity James, a real pity.... ha, I like it how we have been having a conversation on your blog, I think its great
[Originally posted 12:06 02/06/2005]
Dan, I just can’t bear to talk to you in real-time. I think that this is a sufficiently detached forum for communication. Spang, I do think it’s normal-ish, although I was just about in bed by then. Unfortunately I’ve been slipping, and didn’t manage to wake up until three today. I have an exam at two tomorrow. What am I going to do?! Get my mum to call me at eleven, that’s what. I know exactly what I'm doing. I rule.
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