Tag: Irlen Syndrome

Is a Phoria the Same as a Squint (Strabismus?)

Phorias and strabismus are both eye turns. They give you the feeling of having misdirected gaze. However strabismus can usually be detected by the human eye and although it might be intermittent, it will likely recur in the same direction to the same strength. A person will be said to have a right eye turn or a an up eye turn. The treatment is to align the eyes to attain binocular vision. This can be achieved with prism, or helped through vision therapy or behavioural optometry.

Phorias are more complex. A phoria is an eye turn or misdirected eye in any of the 8 compass points. And both eyes could have the same pattern, a different pattern or only one eye could be affected. When you add 8 to the possibility of having 0 phoria in one eye you get what is officially called the 9 cardinal points of gaze. When you do the maths and work out how many permutations there are for two eyes with nine points of gaze, you get to the number 81! Yes, there are 81 permutations of phoria. As an example of someone with phorias that disturb me, I have found that I have 18 permutations. So I have glasses made with small amounts of prism in one or two directions to treat all of these. It does make life more complicated but I get used to reading the light, knowing my needs, and it is worth it!

The Root Cause of Sensory Processing Disorder – It is all About the Eyes

  • Many highly sensitive people are sensitive to their perception of the spectrum, specifically red and blue light.
  • Sensitivity to red and blue light causes the visual image not to always fall centrally on the fovea centralis at the back of our eye. Movement of the visual image from falling on the centre of the fovea (promoting sharp visual acuity) and switching on red and green cones, to image falling on outer edge of the fovea (promoting less sharp visual acuity) switching on blue cones, and all the incremental changes of these combinations, cause disturbance in our visual system.
  • Disturbance in our visual system cause small muscle imbalances.
  • Small muscle imbalances cause sensitivity to misalignment of our gaze (Phorias)
  • Misalignment of our gaze causes issues with focus, tracking and depth perception.
  • On a deeper level, misalignment of gaze causes Lack of Coherence (difficulty seeing the big picture or processing the whole.) A person’s world may appear to be unintegrated or flat.
  • Lack of Coherence causes confusion. It is as if the brain is trying to do a giant jigsaw puzzle but can’t quite make the pieces fit together.
  • Confusion overloads the nervous system and the result is sensory processing issues (visual, sound, touch and texture, proprioception, balance and interoception.)
  • Issues with focus also cause too low or too high saturation of colour, augmenting the sensory issues of taste and smell.

What Do We Do About This?

We need to: –

Test people to see if they could be sensitive to their phorias.
Offer people the right prisms to correct their phorias.
Teach people about spectral sensitivity because this is essential in understanding our phorias and working with them successfully.

Phorias, Auras and The Importance of being Centred

All my life I have been like a human: –
  • Spectrometer (sensitive to the light spectrum)
  • Thermometer (sensitive to temperature)
  • Barometer (sensitive to air pressures
  • Hygrometer (sensitive to damp)

Since I have been working to correct my phorias (changes in eye gaze caused by small eye muscle imbalances) I feel more centred. I feel stronger physcially, emotionally and mentally. I am less sensitive to the tiny changes in my own energy and the energy of other people. I am looking for ways to interact and collaborate with others, that I have never done before. in fact doing things with other people is right at the top of my list now, whereas before it was at the bottom.

As I work to correct my phorias using glasses with prism (and many different pairs because I have many different phorias,) I am feeling more centred as my nervous system relaxes. But there is more to it than this. We are all spiritual beings. Being more centred strengthens my aura and the stronger my aura the less sensitive I am to all the changes going on inside of me and around me.

What Definition Are You Seeing the World In?

When we perceive more blue light than red light, we see the world in higher definition.

When we perceive more red light than blue light, we see the world in lower definition.

When we see in high definition we can feel separate and lonely. We can find it hard to gather and maintain our energy. We can find it hard to drink in from the world and feel part of the world.

When we see in low definition, we can feel that everything is a bit too blended. Life doesn’t draw us in and we can’t quite get hold of things. We can feel tired, apathetic, depressed, as if we have no clear use or purpose.

Look at the photograph at the top. Do you want to walk into the picture and pick up the marble or do you feel you can’t reach it or do you feel oblivious?

If you feel you can’t reach it, you may not perceive enough blue light today.

If you feel oblivious, you may not perceive enough red light today.

If you want to pick it up, then you are just fine the way you are!

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