Peripheral vision, sometimes it is a very handy thing. In case I haven't made my self clear, I am talking about seeing things, as they say, out of the corner of your eye. That is an old term, but I think that it states the case quite eloquently. Sometimes seeing something this way can save you a lot of pain or trouble. An example of this might be the avoidance of an accident, because you might spot a speeding car coming your way and hit the brake. You could be looking for something and see light glinting off of it this way. Yes this type of vision is quite handy. Some people have better peripheral vision that others. What I mean by that is that they have a larger field of view peripherally. It is possible to measure this field of view using a large protractor cut out of cardboard. You put your nose in the center of it while holding it flat and move a stick around it, until it becomes invisible. At that point you look at the degrees on the protractor and you will know to what degree your Peripheral vision is effective.

When we gaze at something, we usually look at it using the center of our vision. This is called fovea. Why do we do this almost automatically? We do it because our body is trained to do it. We have more cones in the area of the fovea than anywhere else in the eye. The cones in this area of our eyes are suspected to be at the smallest level of miniaturization possible and still be functional. The perimeter of our retina has much larger receptive fields than the part of the eye we usually use to see things. One of the mysteries of the eye, is the fact that it has about 125 million receptor rods but only about 6 million cones. This is kind of strange when you think about it. So why do I mention all these facts about our eyes? Many will think it is boring and pointless, but I mention this because our peripheral vision also has a strange side to it.

I can't be sure, but I suspect that most of us have seen something, using our peripheral vision, that has startled us, only to find out that there was nothing there. There are many cases on record where people have seen people and objects using this type of vision, only to find out that they weren't really there. Even spirits have been reported, that were seen "out of the corner of the eye". So what is going on here? If we were to list every possibility, at least all that I can think of, here is what our list would look like:
1. We were wrong.
2. There was something there, but it was not what we thought it was.
3. There was something there, but it disappeared before we could really get a good look at it.
4. There is another plane of existence that we can only get tiny glances of for very short periods of time, if conditions are perfect.
5. There are other beings among us that are hidden somehow, but can come into view for a split second if glanced correctly.
6. Ghosts, or spirits exist and can become visible under the right circumstances, when you use your peripheral vision.
7. Mental Illness.
I know some of these things seem crazy, but I am trying to keep all avenues open as I discuss this.

Be honest with yourself, haven't you ever thought that you saw someone, only to turn around and there was no one there? I admit this has happened to me a few times in my life and to many other people that I know. Does our peripheral vision have an unknown quality that our normal vision doesn't have? It doesn't seem so, but how do you test for unknown qualities? When you really don't know what you are looking for, it is very difficult to test for it.

Let's go over the items on the list. Can we think that we see something this way and be wrong? Absolutely, things like lighting, and reflections can cause us to think we see any number of things. For example, seeing a broom handle that was leaning against a wall in a dark room fall, might seem like someone moved their arm. We may have peripheral vision, but this type of vision is much cruder than the main type of vision that we use everyday. Then there is the way our vision fills in the missing gaps in what we see. We might see one thing and our brain fills in some pieces that are not there, making us think that we saw something else. To see this in action, just look at the full moon. The man in the moon, is our brain filling in the missing pieces. When we talk of something being there, but disappearing before we can get a normal look at it, it could be just as simple as being a mouse. If you were in a dark room and a mouse scampered across your peripheral field of view and you never got any other look at it, what would you think you saw? Who knows?

I am not saying that I believe in other planes of existence, but there are some that do. For argument sake, lets say that they do exist. Could it be that our peripheral vision might be able to pick this up under certain limited circumstances? This is one of those questions that really can't be answered yet. Since we have way more rods in our eyes than cones, this might contribute to us have some visual powers that we are not yet aware of. Could it be that someday, maybe with the aid of a device, a whole new spectrum will open up to us? When we talk about hidden beings, we are usually talking about extraterrestrials that some say are hidden among us. Could they be camouflaged in some way, so that they are hidden from our sight? Many countries today are doing research on bending light around objects. So far, as far as we know, we have only been able to make things invisible from radar. The reason for this is that it has been reported, that we have yet to figure out how to bend more than one color of light. Experimentation is coming along however and it seems that it is only a matter of time before we will be able to use a device to hide an object or even a human. If we are this far along, why couldn't a more advanced race than us have accomplished this? This is no reason why they couldn't have. Maybe, just maybe, if those that think that there are hidden beings on this planet are right, we might be able to just get a fleeting glace of something every once in a while.

Now lets get to spirits or ghosts. I think that I have heard the term, "I have seen something out of the corner of my eye" used more in this field than any other. There are many people that believe in ghosts, spirits, visions and such. Here is a thought for you, could a person want to see something so badly, that its image might form in his or her peripheral vision for a split second? There are times when it is hard to tell if something was a true memory or a dream that we had. Why couldn't this also be true for things that we really don't get a good look at? The other option is that people actually see these things using their peripheral vision, because in some cases, their ordinary vision can't detect them for some reason. The last item on the list is mental illness. There is no denying that some poor souls do see things that are not there. The mental hospitals all have patients like this in them. I guess that I don't have to expound on this. There is one thing that I would like to mention here and that is if a person was really seeing something that others were not, they might be put into a mental hospital and we would never know.

I would like to mention one more thing. Under certain circumstances, your peripheral vision can play tricks on you. One of the things that can happen, is that it will make you think that something is moving when it is not. There are a few illusions on the web that demonstrate this. If you would like to see them in action,* copy the following link and paste it into your address bar in your browser:

http://punchkickinteractive.com/blog/index.php/punchkick-interactive/color-theory-peripheral-vision-illusions/

Remember use your peripheral vision wisely and never be too sure of what you are seeing.

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