Tag: writing reference

Hi, I wanted to ask you how sensitive eyes would be after a prolonged period of time spent blindfolded (nine days.) What amount of light can he handle, and will he need to stay in darker places for some time before being able to face the outside world or even artificial light? Are the eyes able to adapt quickly back to light despite being deprived of it for such amount of time? I hope you’ll be able to answer, thank you =)

scriptmedic:

Hmmmmm. Well, nine days isn’t enough light deprivation to
cause any kind of permanent disability to the eye itself, and without direct
ocular trauma, in the long term, this person will make a full recovery. It may take some time, maybe a few minutes or even a couple
of hours, to get the eyes back up to fully functioning and being okay with
light. They may be better off wearing sunglasses for the first hour or two while their eyes adjust. They may find it physically
painful at first. But their eyes and their brain are okay, and they’ll adjust
again.

I would also consider the psychological consequences of
being blindfolded for that long. Do they need nightlights? Are they afraid of
dark spaces, or tunnels? Are they the kind of person who wants to face their
fears, and tries blindfolding themselves to try and work it out?

One more thing you may want to include in your story… there
was a study on taking healthy volunteers and blindfolding them for prolonged
periods, and 75%+ of them had hallucinations. Cool study! Here’s the fulltext
version: http://journals.lww.com/jneuro-ophthalmology/Fulltext/2004/06000/Visual_Hallucinations_During_Prolonged.3.aspx

All subjects who experienced hallucinations did so during the
blindfolded period. With one exception, the hallucinations ceased after
the blindfold was removed on the fifth day. In one subject, they
continued for a few hours after the blindfold was removed. Generally,
subjects were initially disoriented after blindfold removal, reporting
of transitory dizziness, and difficulty focusing. Vision returned to
normal approximately 30 to 60 minutes after sight restoration.

Thought it might be relevant to your interests.

Good luck telling your story!! xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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Hello! My character is missing one eye. If he uses the other one a lot, what would be the strain? And if you can’t answer me, can you redirect me to some resources about this?

scriptmedic:

scriptbrainscientist:

scriptmedic:

Hey there! To my knowledge–and I am not an opthalmologist, so forgive me if I’m wrong–but it’s no more strain to look with one eye than it is to look with two. After all, the remaining eye was (presumably) working just fine before the second eye was removed, which implies intact muscles and neurology. In fact, that eye doesn’t realize that its sister is gone.

So in short, there shouldn’t be huge amounts of strain.

Good luck with your story!! xoxo, Aunt Scripty

disclaimer    

Chiming in to say that there would be visual deficits with the loss of one eye, at least from a brain and perception perspective. Though the other would be perfectly intact, having two eyes in the front of our face (binocular vision) allows us to do things like have 3D perspective. Your character would also lose peripheral vision, be able to see about 75% of what he used to see, be able to see worse than with two eyes (in the case of sight, two summed eyes are better than one alone), won’t be able to follow motion as well, won’t be able to orient properly, will become a bit clumsier, and not really have good depth perception. Finally, he will also have to move his head more than he used to to see things. After about a year, the brain adapts to this, but still doesn’t fully recover, and many of these deficits will persist.

I think scriptmedic is right that the other eye would continue to function just the same as before, however. Any feeling of strain would be a projection onto the eye, if that makes sense- your brain would be feeling it and that might make you feel like your eye is working harder, even if not exactly true.

–Mod Nopal 🌵

Thanks for the assist, Nopal!

Listen to me.

mercwithamouth:

Happy endings are not bad.

Wanting characters to be ultimately happy is not the same ignoring conflict.

Writing good conflict WITH a satisfying and believable resolution takes time and talent.

You are a good writer even if you only write happy endings.

Grimdark sad endings do not have more depth than happy endings.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably a grimdark writer with a disproportionate sense of their own ability and depth.

Let your characters be happy, and don’t let anyone tell you that you are subpar for wanting that.