Saturday, August 27, 2011

Optical Illusion

So I know now that I am not crazy, or as I am wont to say, there isn't current evidence to the fact.

Since I got my new glasses a couple of weeks ago, I have been seeing neon--or what appears as if there were a neon light just beyond the top edge of things. Mostly it's the horizon, and mostly when the light is bright. Like this:

Can you see the difference in these two pictures from the lake? The one on the left is the original. I doctored the one on the right so it would show what I see.

When we came back from the lake, we stopped at the optical department and talked to Leo--the young technician on his own that afternoon. He didn't say I was crazy, but you could see that, having never heard of such a thing, he was a bit skeptical. He didn't know what to do, or even say, but took my number so he could call me when he had a chance to talk to Linda, the manager. I had much confidence in Linda, who had fitted my husband's glasses for several years.

He was maybe a bit more skeptical when I told him that sometimes the "aura" was green--generally if I was looking at a wheat field. I've kind of pinned it down--dark against a bright sky shows up gold. Light agains a bright sky shows lime green. Like this comparison--again, original on the left and doctored on the right:

 So Leo called earlier this week, and after some discussion about the fact that I lived 40 miles away, had a very busy two weeks coming up and two weeks of travel after that, assured me that I could bring them in any time before the middle of October and they would check them and if they needed to be replaced they would be under warantee.

Hubby and I decided today that 99ยบ heat on a Saturday afternoon was a good reason to drive 40 miles in an air conditioned car to the air conditioned mall where I could look into the glasses issue in and air conditioned store, and we could see a movie in an air conditioned theater. That and the fact that there wasn't much playing closer.

Leo wasn't there, nor was Linda, nor was the optometrist. So I had to explain my aura to Eric, another young technician on his own this afternoon. Linda was gone for the day already. Eric was just as puzzled as Leo, but as I assured him that Leo had told me to come any time, Eric called a manager at another store and described my illusion as "halos". I heard him assure the expert that he would use more technical language in describing it.

So he told me that she had seen this happen before, very rare, and it is a defect in the lens, and that I needed to leave the glasses so they could fix them and return them in a week and a half or so.

Since I didn't have my old glasses with me as a sub, and since I did actually want to SEE the movie--not just enjoy the AC, I will have to drop the glasses off sometime later to be redone.

BTW, sometimes it is blue. And today I saw a combination that made purple.

But I am not crazy.



3 comments:

imac said...

I have heard of something like this before.
Its might be todo with how the glass-plastic is cut.
Then again, I could be mad.lol.

Liz Hinds said...

weird! Do people have auras? Can you tell if they're good or bad?!!

Katney said...

Yes, imac, and they will be redone.

Yes, Liz, but just yellow and green like everything else--or sometimes blue or purple.