Children who learn to see underwater clearly

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!

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! :)

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Originally Posted by AptaMer

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.

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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 :)

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Originally Posted by Thalassa

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

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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!

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

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Originally Posted by Sammyantha171

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

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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.

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

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Originally Posted by mermaidandrea

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

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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?

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

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Originally Posted by Sammyantha171

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

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Here's the 2008 paper

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Originally Posted by Sammyantha171

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

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

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Thalassa

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

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Precisely. XD You crack me up, Thally!

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by AptaMer

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.

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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 )

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Golden Pearl

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

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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.

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!