Using my rods

I had a really interesting rod-related experience last night: I went into our darkened bedroom and was looking for something on the floor. I couldn't turn on a light because Charlotte was sleeping in there and there were lots of things lying around on the floor.

I saw three unfamiliar dark objects lying there and I was trying to work out what they were. I realised two were Emily's navy slippers and one was my navy eye mask. But when I looked directly at each object, it seemed to dissapear. I could see the outline but no detail. When I looked at a different object, the detail came back in my peripheral vision. The slippers have white pictures outlined on them so they were particularly obvious in losing their detail.

It was the first time that I have seen my own blind spot in rod vision. I spent quite a long time flicking my eyes between each of the three objects and noticing how the details dissapeared from my central vision and appeared only in my peripheral vision. It was frustating to have to try and see the object without looking at it. I wondered if that was because my brain is trained to look direct and Charlotte's eyes will train differently so that she is using her peripheral vision to look at details.

The light was also very dim which made it really difficult to see. I wonder if Charlotte will be able to use her rods more effectively in brighter lighting. Mine could only operate that fully when the lights were so low because otherwise my cones would have started working.

The whole exercise was very illuminating (pun intended), but also quite upsetting.