My first time using Eyesynth
When I first heard about what the Eyesynth system will be able to offer me, I couldn´t quite believe it…¨Glasses that will permit me to see by hearing? ¨
I tried to imagine how cameras located on top of the actual glasses frame could capture images and convert them into a sound that I could decipher and interpret, a sound very similar to the soft sound from the ocean… how a table or streetlight could have a distinctive sound corresponding to its shape and size, or what I would perceive when standing in front of a mirror after having lost my sight so many years ago…?
The truth is that during this trip to Madrid with the Eyesynth team I had a very pleasant conversation with Antonio, who explained to me how the Eyesynth system works. I developed incredible curiosity as to whether my questions regarding the glasses would be addressed when putting them on. Within 15 minutes of wearing the Eyesynth glasses at a cafeteria close to the station, I understood for myself what Antonio had explained to me: the abstract sound, slightly moving (¨sweeping¨ left and right) my head so the cameras could detect the corners of an object, raising my head to detect its height… until finally differentiating a jug from a plate and extending my hand to pick it up without previous tactile recognition of the table, only by moving my head and listening to the sound!
The brain is plastic, which means that it is capable of modifying its connections when learning new things. It´s incredible how something that I hadn´t been exposed to was so easy to understand; the distance between the objects, their height, and shape are details that I keep learning about the more I practice.
Evidently, the glasses have not restored my sight (which the Eyesynth team keeps insisting on), but they suddenly expand my field of action and my abilities to feel my surrounding environment. I imagine many possibilities that I´m anxious to explore. There´s a video circulating on YouTube about one of the trials I did. It shows the first time I reached and grabbed an object in years. Without prior indications, without having touched it before. It was incredibly exciting.
By the way, the mirror was quite an experience. I´ll tell you more about it in another post. Until then!
