Children who learn to see underwater clearly

[AptaMer]

We all know that merpeople have always been depicted as seeing clearly underwater without masks or goggles or lenses, which is why it's annoying that if you go au naturel with nothing on your eyes, you can't see clearly.

I've always wondered whether there was some kind of contact-lens you could put on to see clearly underwater, but it seems that maybe people have the ability to see underwater if they can learn a certain relex. The video below is about how some children who freedive from a very young age learn to develop a reflex that allows them to see underwater.


http://youtu.be/YIKm3Pq9U8M

These children start learning at a very young age, I wonder if one can learn this at an older age

[MerEmma]

Oh my god. Could I be more jealous? I don't think so. That's absolutely amazing. I want a step-by-step tutorial on eHow, stat. ahaha. That's amazing.

[Mermaid Isabela]

So jealous!

[Rat-Soup]

Fun fact: People who are extremely short-sighted can see almost normally underwater! Possibly dangerous suggestion, but if you were to wear contact lenses designed for correcting far-sightedness (at a corrective index of at least +1.30), you may be able to see normally underwater. I'm short-sighted, but not enough to completely throw off the distortion that the water causes, so my eyesight (without glasses) above and below water is about the same. :-/

[lasserine]

That is interesting.

I used to wear thick glasses for distance, and could see really well under water. After having Lasik done, to correct it, my underwater vision, is blurry now.

[AptaMer]

I want a step-by-step tutorial

It was a Swedish scientist who discovered this phenomenon. It seems that after she observed the phenomenon in Moken children, she did some experiments with untrained Euopean children to see if they could learn the reflex.

If you go to her homepage ( http://www4.lu.se/vision-group/people/alumni/anna-gislen ) you can find her scientific articles including the one on experiments training children can be downloaded there.

[Ashe]

Oh yeah! This article! My brother told me all about this after my underwater experience of opening my eyes in the ocean. So jealous!

[Blondie]

I would assume a lot people who are in cultures that basically live in the water would be able to see well underwater. Maybe not perfectly like these children but better than us. It's true, we adapt to our conditions we live in.

[Thalassa]

Fun fact: People who are extremely short-sighted can see almost normally underwater! Possibly dangerous suggestion, but if you were to wear contact lenses designed for correcting far-sightedness (at a corrective index of at least +1.30), you may be able to see normally underwater. I'm short-sighted, but not enough to completely throw off the distortion that the water causes, so my eyesight (without glasses) above and below water is about the same. :-/

Personally, I have a prescription of -5 and -6 to correct my nearsightedness. I can see okay underwater (according to my tests, not really WELL) without my contacts in, but when I get above water I can't see. So it's a choice between seeing underwater or seeing the clients/kids/etc above water. XP Or wearing glasses out of the water, I guess, but glasses give me headaches.

[Winged Mermaid]

So cool!!

On a related note, they’ve made full eye contacts that have a layer of air on the inside of the lens, allowing for use for vision underwater! They’ve tested them to 300ft and with competition swimmers- they are safe and stay securely in. Other contacts on the market are not full eye contacts and therefore fall out frequently in the water. He's an article on them: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1075502/index.htm I would totally save up for these babies.

[Mermaid Danielle]

Cool! Thanks for posting!

[Mermaid Narina]

I wish i could do that!!! If you see blurry because your pupil dilates underwater, then to see clearly you would need it to contract... right? So if you looked at a light underwater, would your pupils contract, making you see clearly?

[Ashe]

Very cool, Iona! Thanks for posting :)

[Mermaid Hamant]

This is so cool! I would absolutely LOVE to be able to see clearly underwater. Goggles can really be a drag when you are trying to look like a natural mermaid. Also, I find that I can hold my breath longer when I can see in the water (when I put goggles on.) I will probably be looking into trying to learn how to do this now. lol

[Nyx]

After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

[SeaGlass Siren]

i am jealous...

[Drowning]

I would love to sign up for that training! It would be a dream come true.


After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

[MerEmma]

I hope the training exists very soon. :b

[AptaMer]

After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

Hi Nyx,

I presume you looked at the Methods section of the article "Visual training improves underwater vision in children" from Anna Gislén's website?

She trained for acuity (ability to see fine details) underwater using so-called 100% contrast gratings, or patterns of black & white bars, as shown in the photo

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More information on how these gratings work can be found at http://psy.mq.edu.au/vision/~peterw/csf.html

She used B&W bar gratings of 1.75, 2.18, 2.49, 2.91, 3.49, 4.36, and 5.82 cycles per degree, which simply means 1.75 to 5.82 bars in each degree on the paper. Note that you can make your own gratings using a laser printer. Now at 50 cm distance from the eye to the paper, 1 degree would cover 0.83 cm horizontally on the paper, so you print gratings with the required number of bars in 0.83 cm.

For taking videos of the eye's reflex, she used a Sony Nightshot camera, which can detect infrared, with a special optical filter that allows only infrared light to reach the camera. She used infrared Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the eye with infrared light. I found a picture of the camera setup she was using here http://www.wdr.de/tv/quarks/sendungsbeitraege/2006/0912/002_tauchen.jsp?pbild=3

8888

You can see that it's a Sony consumer-grade video camera in an underwater housing with a ring of infrared LEDs around the lens to illuminate the subject's iris.

All of this could be replicated. I wonder if a project to develop an open source "Learn to see underwater" training program should be started?

[Nyx]

@AptaMer
Wow thank you so much for posting this! it's awesome!
I actually only saw a small article that paraphrased the experiment, so I couldn't get the details.
Again thank you for finding this!
It would be amazing if someone duplicated it, a good business too.
Specially for people swimming in the ocean, what with trying to spot different fish while trying to look graceful (goggles don't help the later XD).

[MerEmma]

I would donate money to it if there were a kickstarter/indiegogo for someone trying to figure out how to do this. :) Maybe someone will! I would if my life were a bit different than it is.

[Thalassa]

I would donate money to it if there were a kickstarter/indiegogo for someone trying to figure out how to do this. :) Maybe someone will! I would if my life were a bit different than it is.

AMEN! Seriously, though, I wish I had the time to devote to studying this. Maybe in the summer when my apartment pool is open, it's not frigid and I'm not teaching school. Yeah...that whole two weeks. XD

[Mermaid Allie]

that would be AWESOME. OMG.

[Mermaid Allie]

Wait, I wonder if Hannah Fraser can see underwater...? She's been swimming her whole life!

[Thalassa]

I may be remembering wrong (can anyone confirm) but I thought I remembered an interview with her. Someone asked how she could see underwater and she said she couldn't... *goes searching*

[Thalassa]

Ah, here: http://www.hannahfraser.com/mermaid/slippages/faq.php#Howdoyouseeunderwater?Doesn%27tthewatersti ngyoureyes?

[Usagi]

Doesn't chlorine blur your vision underwater? I've only opened my eyes in pools and in the shallow parts of the ocean (when I get taken captive by a wave and end up tumbling, and need to find the surface. :P). In pools I always thought the chlorine had some part in the blurriness, and in the ocean, all the sand is getting kicked around..so would I need to try it in a non-chlorinated pool? Lol I can't go in the ocean past by waist...which is only about 2.5' haha

Or am I just making excuses for my blurry, underwater vision? Hehe

[AptaMer]

Doesn't chlorine blur your vision underwater?

Actually, I know what's up with that, sydthefairebrat. The reason Anna Gislen could train her subjects in a pool in Sweden is that in Europe they use way less chlorine than they do in Canada & the United States. The chlorine is so strong in US pools, that that's why it can hurt to open your eyes, and you need to use chlorine protector conditioner for your hair. In Eurpean pools you can open your eyes just fine, and the chlorine isn't nearly so bad ofr your skin and hair. I don't know why they use so much chlorine here in North America, but I think it must be too much, because people seem to do just fine not getting bacteria in Europe.

[AptaMer]

@AptaMer
I actually only saw a small article that paraphrased the experiment, so I couldn't get the details.

It would be amazing if someone duplicated it, a good business too.
Specially for people swimming in the ocean, what with trying to spot different fish while trying to look graceful (goggles don't help the later XD).

Hi Nxy,

So that it will be available for all to read what she did, I have attached the scientific article by Anna Gislén that describes how she did the training. The whole recipe is there. Basically she put them in the water looking at finer and fine gratings to determine at what point they couldn't distinguish detail anymore, and as they practiced trying to distinguish finer gratings, they got better at seeing them underwater. She used her infrared camera to record whether they developed the pupil reflex also.

Because of Mernetwork's limit on PDF file size, I had to break the article up into 2 pieces. If you click on both of them and print them out, you can get the whole article that way. I have all her human underwater vision journal papers & can post the others if there is interest.

[Tasha Mermaid]

I have never been able to swim with my eyes closed underwater, they have to be open, i also cannot use goggles they feel weird, i have no problem seeing clearly under water it has always been clear for me, mind you i used to like swimming underwater a lot as a kid, still do.....chlorine does distort a little for me but in general i see quite well underwater......interesting fact of me is that my eyes are extremely photo sensitive, i see better and my eyes are more relaxed at night or in darker areas, i wear strong uv and polarised sun glasses to be able to stand even a normal light, the sun is way to strong and my eyes feel like they are burning (it also makes me sneeze a lot as do bright lights) i dont turn lights on at home because i get a migraine from the light

[Mermaid Cascada]

So, I can do this with my eyes but not underwater lol. And when I'm above water my eyes start focusing and it makes everything blurry like I have no control over it lol.

[Mermaid Pickles]

I think that's really cool. Normally when I'm swimming I locate by sounds that I can hear, but I've found that I can see clearer if I kinda squinch my eyes. Maybe I could figure out how to isolate the muscle in my eyes, like I did with figureing out how to wiggle my ears. Hmmm...

[Gem Stone]

at night, I like to sink to the bottom of my pool and look up. when I really focus, I can pick out constellations from the water

[drucilla]

That would be awesome!

[Capt Nemo]

It's not the chlorine that burns the eyes, it's the chloramines after the chlorine does it's work. Properly balanced chlorine pools don't smell, and don't burn the eyes.

[Ariel-Starfish]

Personally, I have a prescription of -5 and -6 to correct my nearsightedness. I can see okay underwater (according to my tests, not really WELL) without my contacts in, but when I get above water I can't see. So it's a choice between seeing underwater or seeing the clients/kids/etc above water. XP Or wearing glasses out of the water, I guess, but glasses give me headaches.

Without my glasses, my eyes are -15 and i have bad contrast , but underwater I can see almost perfect <3

[AptaMer]

Without my glasses, my eyes are -15 and i have bad contrast , but underwater I can see almost perfect <3

Cool. So with a different focus, it is possible for your eyes to see clearly underwater.

In a way, you're the opposite of most people. Most people don't need anything to see above water, and need goggles to see underwater. You don't need anything to see underwater, and need glasses to see above the water. Respect! :hail:

[MerEmma]

It's not the chlorine that burns the eyes, it's the chloramines after the chlorine does it's work. Properly balanced chlorine pools don't smell, and don't burn the eyes.

That's totally cool. I once went to a hotel nearby where one pool burned my eyes like crazy and the other one was perfect; I could see pretty darn well. Almost as well as above.

[inactive account]

My sister has really bad eyesight she is -21 in both eyes and when we were little i always wondered why she never bumped into anyone at the pool lol

[Traveling Merman]

I'm thinking if you wear hard contact lenses (gas permeables) what's the chance of them falling out of you're eyes in the pool?

Also does anyone know anything about clear scelra lenses and how easy they stay in your eyes hard vs soft (taking into account that some people's eyes reject the lenses regardless)

[Kanti]

I've opened my eyes underwater with contacts, and sometimes they come out sometimes they don't. You have to let the water surround your contact before you fully open your eye and let it keep the suction around your eye. I usually blink it out a few times with short, shallow and soft blinks to get my eyes "accustomed". Your contacts can still fall out if you turn your head to the side and let water get underneath the lense, but if you swim straight forward it won't come out.

I have HORRIBLE vision, I'm very near sighted and I can't see underwater worth a crud.
I'd like to practice this, though, that'd be cool!

[Sammyantha171]

Wow, this is incredible. I just finished reading Gislen's report, I had figured there were ways to practice making underwater vision better, but I didn't think it was possible to actually be able to see decently clearly! :)



Because of Mernetwork's limit on PDF file size, I had to break the article up into 2 pieces. If you click on both of them and print them out, you can get the whole article that way. I have all her human underwater vision journal papers & can post the others if there is interest.

Thanks so much for putting up the PDF's AptaMer.
Would you mind posting up the rest of her journal papers for us? It would be so awesome of you :)


AMEN! Seriously, though, I wish I had the time to devote to studying this. Maybe in the summer when my apartment pool is open, it's not frigid and I'm not teaching school. Yeah...that whole two weeks. XD

I think I will dedicate some time this holidays looking into this. I can't promise I'll get any reliable method worked out for anyone, but I'll see what I can do.
I'm in the UK, so the pools here are pretty nice on my eyes, I can usually go without goggles for almost an hour before they start getting painful. I never knew you couldn't do this in pools in the US!

[Mermaid Lilium]

the blurring makes sense... it's what happens with larger apertures on cameras and they work exactly like an iris =)

I'm short sighted so maybe that means I'll see ok under water? It sounds like the test / training wouldn't be hard to replicate ourselves... the scientist in me wants to try this lol

[AptaMer]

Would you mind posting up the rest of her journal papers for us?

Hi Sammyantha,

I will get the rest of the papers up. The issue is the 195 kb size limit for attached files, so I'll have to spend some time splitting the PDFs in two. Meanwhile, one of the papers is less than the size limit, so I'll put it up right now.

[SeaGlass Siren]

Wait I'm short sighted in one eye... Does that mean lll be able to see with one eye??

[AptaMer]

Wait I'm short sighted in one eye... Does that mean lll be able to see with one eye??

Hmmm, good question MermaidAndrea. Ariel Starfish sees clearly underwater, but she's hugely shortsighted (-15) Any shortsigtedness will let you see clearer underwater, so you might see pretty well if you favoured your shortsighted eye underwater and your regular eye above water?

[MermaidHyli]

Im very short sighted and can see pretty well there are times when its a bit blurry but again of im right next to something I can see it pretty clearly. Its kinda neat

[AptaMer]

Would you mind posting up the rest of her journal papers for us? It would be so awesome of you :)


Here's the 2008 paper

[AptaMer]

Would you mind posting up the rest of her journal papers for us? It would be so awesome of you :)


Here's the 2004 paper, in 2 parts. That's all the research articles I have by her.

[Mermaid Pickles]

I have discovered that I can pick out patterns on the underwater tiles at my pool. Maybe it's because I've been swimming without goggles for the past year. (I went swimming during the winter as well. Heated pools at the ymca are amazing things.)) I feel quite accomplished.

[MerEmma]

Lucky with your heated YMCA pool. ;c Our YMCA is almost brand new and very dumb in their designing choices...the pool only gets to five feet, it's a zero depth entry and they can't run it but for a little bit in the summer because the heating is way too expensive. For how much they spent on the heating thingymabobber, they could have installed solar for much less. It's only open April-August outside. :B

It's Florida, too! People swim in the winter.

[Mermaid Dottie]

AMEN! Seriously, though, I wish I had the time to devote to studying this. Maybe in the summer when my apartment pool is open, it's not frigid and I'm not teaching school. Yeah...that whole two weeks. XD
Precisely. XD You crack me up, Thally!

[Mermaid Kenzie]

I can see quite clearly in the water, when I'm not swimming my glasses/contacts are -1.50 in each eye (I'm near-sighted), but I'm not sure If that's why. I can contract my pupils quite small, but I think I unintentionally learned that from swimming in pools and playing man-hunt at night with my cousins as a kid. *shrugs* Idk if that's what the Moken children do, but it's always worked for me.

[Mermaid Kalliope]

I can't see clearly, but I also use a form of echolocation to get around. Haha I think I'm far sighted, but when I'm in a low chlorine, high pH pool, I can see just fine. The ocean stung quite a bit last time I tried, but I recall having my eyes open as a child. Hrmm.... gotta read those articles when I'm not on my phone.

[Echidna]

The reason Anna Gislen could train her subjects in a pool in Sweden is that in Europe they use way less chlorine than they do in Canada & the United States. The chlorine is so strong in US pools, that that's why it can hurt to open your eyes, and you need to use chlorine protector conditioner for your hair. In Eurpean pools you can open your eyes just fine, and the chlorine isn't nearly so bad ofr your skin and hair. I don't know why they use so much chlorine here in North America, but I think it must be too much, because people seem to do just fine not getting bacteria in Europe.

Didn't know that. Is every pool like this in the US?
There are differences in Europe too.
My usual pool is ok; it smells only a little, or not at all there; the water is clear.

In another location, the water was milky, and the smell burned your lungs.
If you can smell chlorine when you enter a building, that's a bad sign.
(It was dirty too, and the roof leaked.
We left immediately :P )

[Fathom delMar]

I went looking on Google for those sclera lenses, which I couldn't find any retailors but I did find this: http://liquivision.com/fluidgoggles.php

[Mermaid Oshun]

I don't understand. I open my eyes under water and I can see. Why can't you see with your eyes open?

[Merrow Erie]

I can't even open my eyes underwater though admittedly I haven't tried in a while :/

[MerEmma]

I don't understand. I open my eyes under water and I can see. Why can't you see with your eyes open?

The average person can see, but it's blurry. No details, just the colors blurred together. It's difficult to see WELL, but some can as the video stated as well as people with rubbish vision above water.

[DrkAngl90]

this is incredibly amazing and also makes tons of sense. My eyes are really bad that i basically live in my contacts since i hate wearing my glasses and i hate being blind where everything i see around me is blurry except maybe a foot in front of my face. i have noticed since while swimming i can't wear my contacts since they slip out, that i can see better underwater than out of the water. now i'm really temped to try to train my eyes to focus better underwater. i doubt i can get my eyes to see as well as those kids underwater but dammit i'm gonna try!

[Mermaid Alaria]

I never knew why! I swam without goggles my entire childhood. I never had a problem seeing underwater even in chlorine. I hated goggles. Then sometime during my early teens i lost the ability somehow. Now it's too much of a reflex that as a new mer I'm having a terrible time learning to open my eyes at all. Gah.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Is there hope for people who wear thick glasses? Though the lines would have to be pretty big for us to see them!

[Moana.the.mermaid]

Wow, this explains so much! In the water, without my contacts, I have near perfect vision. Above the water, my eyes are -6 and -5.75. So this is really interesting - I thought everyone had good underwater vision. Lol

much love, one love - Moana

[AptaMer]

Well, that correlates, Moana. I don't need glasses and see clearly above water, but underwater everything is blurry.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

My eyes are at -2.50 and -5.00. Underwater, I can see better than a lot of people, but still not perfectly. I think I'll try closing my stronger left eye and seeing how my weaker eye does on its own.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

Now I know for a FACT that I'll never get Lasik.

[Mermaid Nerida]

Fun fact: People who are extremely short-sighted can see almost normally underwater! Possibly dangerous suggestion, but if you were to wear contact lenses designed for correcting far-sightedness (at a corrective index of at least +1.30), you may be able to see normally underwater. I'm short-sighted, but not enough to completely throw off the distortion that the water causes, so my eyesight (without glasses) above and below water is about the same. :-/
That sounds like me Lol! I always thiught my extreme near-sightedness was a curse, but I can see almost perfectly under the water. It's what made me feel like a mermaid when I was little.

Sent from my shell phone under the sea!

[AptaMer]

Now I know for a FACT that I'll never get Lasik.


I always thiught my extreme near-sightedness was a curse, but I can see almost perfectly under the water. It's what made me feel like a mermaid when I was little.


LOL- you know you were meant to be a mermaid when you can see underwater, but not above :thumbs-up:

[Sabrina the Selkie]

Yuuuuup. Lol.

Infuriating note: my mother - who has perfect vision - says she can see perfectly under the water too.
Gah. *flicks fins irritatedly*

[Merman Lir]

That is interesting.

I used to wear thick glasses for distance, and could see really well under water. After having Lasik done, to correct it, my underwater vision, is blurry now.

same here! still don't regret the lasik, however.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

-9 and -10. Nothing can ever help me except expensive custom made goggles.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

How frequently do you open your eyes under the water, Jaffa? I woulda thought your vision (-9 and -10) would actually be fairly good when under the water, sans goggles.

[Ariel-Starfish]

-9 and -10. Nothing can ever help me except expensive custom made goggles.

We are in the same boat : -15 and - 16 here, and tunnel vision.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

Oof that's awful. But again, how is your vision under water?

[Ariel-Starfish]

Quite clear without goggles. :) But clorine hates me! And with my premature eye I can only open one eye under water. :facepalm:

[AptaMer]

with my premature eye I can only open one eye under water

Had an interesting thought, Ariel Starfish. With a piece of black rubber and the seal from a pair of swimming goggles, you could make a really cool pirate eyepatch to wear over the eye you can't open underwater when you're in the water as a mermaid. The rubber glued onto the seal to make the patch would be flexible and equalize the pressure so you wouldn't get eye squeeze, and it would mean you wouldn't have to squeeze one eye shut when you go down.

Just a thought

http://mernetwork.com/index/attachment.php?attachmentid=31501&stc=1

[Ariel-Starfish]

[QUOTE=AptaMer;204388]Had an interesting thought, Ariel Starfish. With a piece of black rubber and the seal from a pair of swimming goggles, you could make a really cool pirate eyepatch to wear over the eye you can't open underwater when you're in the water as a mermaid. The rubber glued onto the seal to make the patch would be flexible and equalize the pressure so you wouldn't get eye squeeze, and it would mean you wouldn't have to squeeze one eye shut when you go down.

Just a thought/QUOTE]

That is a really neat idea! Thank you! :D Love the picture aswel! ❤️

[Mermaid Jaffa]

How frequently do you open your eyes under the water, Jaffa? I woulda thought your vision (-9 and -10) would actually be fairly good when under the water, sans goggles.

Nope. Blind on land. Blind underwater!

[Echidna]

LOL- you know you were meant to be a mermaid when you can see underwater, but not above :thumbs-up:
Indeed!
Sadly, I have not found a feasible way to spend most of my time underwater :(

[AptaMer]

Don't we all wish. That reminded me of this video by the famous Turkish freediver, Yasemin Dalkilic


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU4a4DNpwDg

Note added: Although there is a sad note at the end of this video about NOAA deciding to close the Aquarius lab, which looked like the fate of the habitat in 2012 when Dalkilic made this video, in 2013 Florida International University was able to raise funding to save it, and the habitat is still active, and is being operated by FIU.

[Ariel-Starfish]

Don't we all wish. That reminded me of this video by the famous Turkish freediver, Yasemin Dalkilic


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU4a4DNpwDg

GASP!! :jawdrop:

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Her monofin is amazing! Its so soft and flowy!

[Echidna]

That video is amazing (there was a thread about it somewhere).

As I said there, I'd prefer an underwater home that looks more natural, reef- or underwater cave-like than so techie and humanish, but one cannot have it all I guess. ;)

[Mermaid Joie]

Don't we all wish. That reminded me of this video by the famous Turkish freediver, Yasemin Dalkilic


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU4a4DNpwDg

Note added: Although there is a sad note at the end of this video about NOAA deciding to close the Aquarius lab, which looked like the fate of the habitat in 2012 when Dalkilic made this video, in 2013 Florida International University was able to raise funding to save it, and the habitat is still active, and is being operated by FIU.


I WANT TO LIVE THERE! Seriously, why haven't they opened a resort like this? If I had a billion dollars I would buy the place and create the worlds first mermaid colony! I can't be the only one that thought this during the video.

So has anyone actually bought and tested the contact lens thing? How can I (a person with normal vision) get my fins on some of these lenses? Will this work for freshwater Mers? I would like to stop bumping my head every time I want to swim without goggles. I got a mouth full of sand the other day after I face planted into the sand while swimming to shore without goggles. The lake here is a barf green and I can only see about two feet in front of my face with goggles. Without goggles I can see my hands but they are blurry, glowing, and ghost-like. Creepy! Everything else looks like pea soup. Is there any hope that I will be able to see anything underwater?

[AptaMer]

So has anyone actually bought and tested the contact lens thing? How can I (a person with normal vision) get my fins on some of these lenses? Will this work for freshwater Mers?

Is there any hope that I will be able to see anything underwater?

Wearing contact lenses in lakes or the ocean has led to some serious eye problems, Mermaid Joie. Especially swimming in some lakes, people have gotten a nasty amoebic parasite between their eye and the lens and have developed infections, that even led to one person going blind in one eye. More info is in this thread

http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?11351-Is-it-ok-to-swim-in-the-ocean-with-contacts-on

This thread is about how children have learned to see clearly underwater without lenses ot goggles. It seems it might be possible for older people to learn how too. Some equipment would be required, and people would have to debug the procedure developed by Swedish researchers. Maybe a Kickstarter/Indigogo is called for?

[Mermaid Joie]

Wearing contact lenses in lakes or the ocean has led to some serious eye problems, Mermaid Joie. Especially swimming in some lakes, people have gotten a nasty amoebic parasite between their eye and the lens and have developed infections, that even led to one person going blind in one eye. More info is in this thread

http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?11351-Is-it-ok-to-swim-in-the-ocean-with-contacts-on

This thread is about how children have learned to see clearly underwater without lenses ot goggles. It seems it might be possible for older people to learn how too. Some equipment would be required, and people would have to debug the procedure developed by Swedish researchers. Maybe a Kickstarter/Indigogo is called for?

Right but couldn't you encounter the same problem just swimming with your eyes open? Are there antibacterial drops that Mers can use before swimming?

[Echidna]

You can always contract a waterborne parasite when swimming.

Lenses heighten the risk. Have you read the article? It's explained there.
It can happen even in correctly chlorinated pools.

Personally, I've gotten over my intense dislike of goggles and wouldn't swim without anymore.
Especially since I know what's going on in pools.
My health > looks.

You could try to wear corrective lenses beneath goggles, provided those are 100% watertight and you don't take them off.
I wouldn't risk it though.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

I think that would sting the eye really badly, Joie.

But the issue with contact lenses is that the water gets stuck between the eye and the lens, so no bueno. I've never gotten any eye infections as a result of swimming in Lake Michigan, personally, and I never use goggles.

[AptaMer]

the issue with contact lenses is that the water gets stuck between the eye and the lens.

Agreed. The issue is that water can be sucked in between the lens and the eye along with pathogens like amoebae or bacteria, and it layer of water acts like an incubator for them, holding them in a warm layer of nutrients where the eye can't get rid of them.

When the eye is open underwater and is continuously flushed out, especially by your blinking, these pathogens can't get a foothold.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

Sounds about right.