I went for an eye exam last week at Vision Excess in Wood Green. Turns out my prescription was too strong so I needed a new pair. In fact, I wanted to keep the frame and just have the lenses replaced.
This leaves me with my old glasses (which were too string before I got the ones that are now also too strong) so it’s royally screwing with my head.
Unless I just don’t wear glasses for a while – which is what I’m doing, and I gotta tellya: I’m enjoying the side effects!
I’m a little bit short sighted but not a huge amount, it used to be -1.75 and less on the other eye. What does interfere with my vision is astigmatism. That’s caused by the lens not being round in relation to the eye (eye think… har har) and can be corrected easily with contact lenses.
I’m not wearing any though because when I tried them nearly 20 years ago they made my eyes itchy. This is not the contacts’ fault but probably due to me working in air conditioned rooms without sunlight most of the time. At least I was back in those days.
In fact I started going to see an optician for the first time because I kept missing mistakes that the telecine was producing, which my other colleagues were clearly picking up. I’ve worn glasses ever since.
Here are some examples of what my world looks like without glasses:
OK I’m exaggerating as I tend to do, in reality it’s not quite as extreme but you get the drift. At first I thought this extremely annoying, but I have to admit the effect is growing on me.
Reality seems to have become an artistic representation of itself. Everything looks like painted in watercolour to me. People look more beautiful, I can’t see their expressions clearly so I can interpret anything I see fit into them. Advertising doesn’t work anymore (I may read that a product is chocolate, but not actually know what product it is) so my life is becoming much more interesting to me.
The only downside is perhaps that I can’t read the monitors at work anymore (but hey, for those short moments I always have my old glasses).
I encourage you to try it out! You may find the world is prettier than you think 😉