This tiktoks trends where people would record themselves with their phone going around their heads, and got shocked of how crazy it is to know that they can still see the phone even when its in the back of their head. And some people claim that apparently children who grew up in a traumatic past, or who grew up with a traumatic childhood can see better and have a better peripheral vision. Is this true?
Well, let’s go discuss about this
Okay so before we discuss about this we need to know first
What is a Trauma?
There is still a lot of debates of what actually is a trauma, but according to what a psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator based in Boston, United States. Bessel van der Kolk ever mentioned that
“Trauma is actually extremely common. There’s a lot debates of what the trauma is to this day. But basically, trauma is something that happens to you that makes you so upset that it overwhelms you. And there is nothing you can do to stave off the inevitable. You basically collapse in a state of confusion, maybe rage, because you are unable to function in the face of this particular threat. But the trauma is not the event that happens, the trauma is how you respond to it.”
a psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator based in Boston, United States. Bessel van der Kolk.
And according to the American Psychological Association (APA), trauma is “an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster.”
Many of us will experience some kind of trauma during our lifetime. Sometimes, we escape with no long-term effects. but for millions of us, those experiences linger, causing symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, and negative thoughts that interfere with everyday life. This phenomenon, called post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Trauma can change our thinking, feelings, mental and even actions. Traumatic events that happened makes them feel as if you are in a state of ‘high alert’ and ‘on watch’ for anything else that might happen.
The problem with trauma is that it starts off with something that happens to us, but that’s not where it stops, because it changes your brain. Much of the imprint of trauma is the very primitive survival part of your brain that I like to call the cockroach brain. As a part of you that just picks up what’s dangerous and what’s safe.
And when you’re traumatized, that little part of your brain, which is usually very quiet, continues to just send messages. “I’m in danger.” “I’m not safe.” That event itself is over, but you continue to react to things as if you’re in danger.
a psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator based in Boston, United States. Bessel van der Kolk.
So now we can all agree that Trauma can change our brain into thinking more vigilantly about our surroundings and conditions, thats’s why sometimes someone who had a traumatic childhood always be alert about their surroundings. sometimes they can feel wheter if someone is watching or standing behind them before they even notice.
So then can trauma makes our peripheral vision go wider?
There is still no clear explanation or evidence about how a traumatic events that happened can make our peripheral vision go wider or even see better.
so the answer is no, but as a result of the sensory vision system’s interconnections with the structures of the limbic system, blurry vision is a common symptom in PTSD patients.
But if you’re still wondering why you can still see something even when it’s behind your head, well there is actually a clear and a psychological explanation of why you can see using the back of the head.
According to one of the most best selling books by an Australian body language expert and authors or co-authors of the most greatest books. Allan and Barbara pease, ever mentioned in one of their books, with the title : Why men don’t listen and Women can’t read maps
Women have wider peripheral
– From the book : Why men don’t listen and Women can’t read maps
vision, men have tunnel vision.
The Eyes Have It
The eye is an extension of the brain that sits outside the skull. The retina at the back of the eyeball contains about 130 million rod-shaped cells called photoreceptors to deal with black and white, and seven million cone-shaped cells to handle colour.
The X chromosome provides these colour cells. Women have two X chromosomes which gives them a greater variety of cones than men and this difference is noticeable in how women describe colours in greater detail. A man will use basic colour descriptions like red, blue and green, but a woman will talk of bone, aqua, teal, mauve and apple green. Human eyes have noticeable whites which other primates lack. This allows for the movement of the eye and the direction of the gaze which are vital to human face-to-face communication.
Womens’ eyes display more white than mens’ eyes because close-range personal communication is an integral part of female bonding, and more white allows a greater range of eye signals to be sent and received in the direction that the eyes move.
This type of eye communication is not critical to most other species of animal and so they have little or no whites and rely on body language as the main form of communication.
Eyes In The Back of Her Head?
Well, not quite, but close. Women not only have a greater variety of cones in the retina, they also have
wider peripheral vision than men. As a nest-defender, a woman has brain software that allows her to receive an arc of at least 45° clear vision to each side of her head and above and below her nose. Many women’s peripheral vision is effective up to almost 180°. A man’s eyes are larger than a woman’s and his brain configures them for a type of long-distance tunnel vision which means that he can see clearly and
accurately directly in front of him and over greater distances, almost like a pair of binoculars.
So from the explanation and pictures there it’s already clear that the peripheral vision is more wider in women than men and still there is no clear evidence about how the traumatic past can be related to our peripheral vision in the present.
So no need to be shocked of how crazy it is that you can see things so clear and extensive, it’s just how the way it is. Women’s eyes just have a wider peripheral vision than men.