You see, as the shrinking of the vitreous continues and pulls away from the retina, parts of the vitreous can remain attached by slender strands. Naturally, you can see these strands and other debris in the form of floaters - those little black dots and web-like lines that appear in your field of vision. In my case, these strands present as curved lines in the sides of my eye and intricate webs in front. If I sit still, the side lines blur shapes and my parkie brain constructs bodies out of those shapes. For example, right now, if I hold my head still and look straight ahead, I can "see" a little boy standing beside me when in reality, it is a round fan and the radiator. Nothing too spectacular.
All this can be fun (like being on LSD, I guess), but it can also be dangerous. On the way home from the lake, after 2 hours of sleep..... (I had a little bout of medicine induced insomnia last night)...at 7am, I saw 3 deer on the road, 2 bicyclists and a semi-trailer pulling onto the highway. These formed when my floaters combined with the background to form these illusions, which disappeared as I got closer. But, if you see them, and they always appear to be shapes with no solid bodies, with no colours, much like that invisible plane that wonder woman flew, you blink and hold closed for a second or or two; if you do that, the floaters will move to another spot and the delusion will disappear.
They tell me the floaters will also disappear with time. If that is the case, it will be the only thing to improve as I grow older and deteriorate.
Through parkinson's I have discovered illusion is often a welcome sidekick of reality.
As Steve Martin once said, “Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.”
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