Magic Eye Pictures
Can you 'see' these Magic Eye pictures? What is hidden in the picture above?
I remember years ago, experiencing the initial struggle to figure out how to see the hidden picture, and then the excitement when the image 'popped out' at me!
A little while ago, something reminded me of these pictures and we got a book out of the library with some in to show our girls. Our younger daughter could see the pictures, but our eldest could not, no matter how hard or how many different ways we tried to show her. Eventually she lost interest and the book was returned to the library.
Then again a few weeks ago, I stumbled across these Magic Eye pictures again, and this time found an article called, "Why Can't Some People See Magic Eye Pictures". The article basically said that those people who really cannot see these pictures generally have a problem with their stereo vision, or the way their eyes work together. This immediately got me thinking of our elder daughter who has weak eyesight. The optician recently told her that she has one eye weaker than the other, for which she is now wearing an eye-patch a little each day to cover the stronger eye and so stimulate the weaker eye.
So for her, if her stronger eye is compensating for her weaker eye, they aren't working together equally , so that would account for her inability to see these Magic Eye pictures!
Eye Exercises
Myself and our daughter are currently doing daily eye exercises to help improve our eyesight.
In our set of eye exercise worksheets that we both use each day, there is a sheet for 'convergence'.
The sheet has 2 columns of identical text printed next to each other. The exercise is to practice looking at the texts so that a third column appears between the other two and you can read that one.
A few days ago our daughter shouted out her excitement when she could finally see the third column!
As something she had tried and could not see several weeks ago, but that now, after consistently using her eye patch she is able to see, this is a great tangible result for her.
I knew from doing this exercise myself, that it requires the same use of your eyes as the Magic Eye pictures, so..once again I returned to the library and borrowed some more Magic Eye books.
It was so lovely to hear and see the excitement in our daughter as she flipped through the book seeing the images.
She still can't see them all straight away, but is practising and very encouraged by the fact that her eyes seem to be working together again, giving her more encouragement to continue with her daily eye patching and exercises.
After several months of stopping and starting these exercises, and trying to find a way to encourage her to do them regularly we finally resorted to bribery! The bribery has worked to get the exercises done regularly - but the motivation gained from seeing actual results has done even more than the bribery!
Adding magic eye pictures to the daily eye exercises has added a bit more fun into the whole process too. Using these 3D images to help improve eyesight is not unheard of. There is a whole book dedicated to this. (Magic Eye Beyond 3D)
You can also make your own pictures (like the one at the top of this page) on this website. You can choose your own background and image/ text and the site will generate the picture for you! Our girls are having fun making their own designs with this!
Can you see these Magic Eye pictures? What about your kids? Do you believe they can help improve certain eyesight problems?
Note: we printed all our eye exercise worksheets from the website Clear Vision Naturally
Sister and I both could do these when we were little, but we are now both nearsighted (-4.00). My husband couldn't do them, and he has 20/20 vision. He says he's always suspected he has a weaker eye, but I suspect that discrepancies between the eyes actually encourage more accute general eyesight even if one eye is weaker. Just a thought. Would defonitelt NOT use the magic eye images to improve vision. Instead, no tv or screens, spend time outside in the sun, and spend time looking a long ways off. Don't force reading too early. Because I can tell you, nearsightedness impacts one's life far more than eyes neing more or less strong. And don't cover the strong eye, it just makes the strong one weak not the weak one strong. My friend did this with her son bc his coordination was affected, but he now has to wear glasses. I sometimes think we make more problems than we fix.
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