2. A Double Vision Enigma
Rick Garlikov

3. I woke up a couple of days ago with double images in the lower portion of my field of vision -- with one image above another. In the mornings this occurs in about half my field of vision, but decreases to maybe the bottom fourth or fifth within about fifteen minutes.
The upper portion of my field of vision is normal.

4. But in the lower portion (which all these slides represent), where you see one pencil here,

5. I see two, one above the other.

6. With both eyes open, I see two pencils, but if I close my right eye and keep my left one open, the lower image disappears and I see just the upper one.

8. If I close my left eye and keep my right eye open, the upper one disappears and I see just the lower one:

10. An ophthalmologist has diagnosed it and will treat it appropriately, so that is not the enigma here. The following is:

11. It seemed to me that both images could not each be the position of the actual object, so the question to me was which one was real. Here is what I found:

12. With both eyes open so that I see two pencils, if I tried to touch the upper pencil

13. I could and did.

14. But if I tried to touch the lower pencil,

15. I couldn’t because it wasn’t really there. That was a false image
I couldn’t because it wasn’t really there. That was a false image. Although in this slide I show the pencil faded, it is not really faded or at least not this much when I try to touch it. It just is not there, though it looks like it is.
However, …

16. If I close my right eye to see only the upper pencil and I try to touch it

17. I can and do, just as before with both eyes open, but now seeing only the upper one this way.

19. But, surprisingly to me, if close my left eye so that I only see the lower pencil

21. And I try to touch it, I also can and do, even though

22. I couldn’t touch it when it was in the same place in the double image.

23. But it is actually there when I close my left eye.

26. So with both eyes open and seeing the double image, the upper one seems to be the only one in the actual location, but with either eye alone open, each image seems to be in the actual location. I can’t figure out how that can be or what it indicates.