Mirrors & I’s: “Is this real or am I trippin’?” — Studying the Soul’s Interpreter
By: N O R R I N
Tags: Mirrors, Psychology, Eyes, Opinion, Sociology

“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter — often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter — in the eye.” — Charlotte Bronte.

This quote has held a heavyweight in the back of my head for a very long time. The idea that our eyes are the interpreters of reality to the sightless computer in our heads stuck with me like leaves on a tree. Not only did I understand what this quote meant, I understood it so well that it made me question my original understanding of it for a new one — this space for a bigger lesson was emphasized during a class project where I had the chance to use Virtual Reality to experience the sight of a blind person. The only way I was able to describe it was “It made me feel grateful.” This specific chance to understand just how important our eyes are brought out a new love for my “interpreters” but also gave me the space to make awareness about them.

Notes & Drawings taken during the study

We often take advantage of the powers of our eyes, yet it is something we all at one point realized how important of an asset it is to us, as humans. Sight enables us to interpret the words and ideas of our world we create in our heads with vibrant, 3-dimensional imagery — this imagery is everything you’ve seen all your life. Buildings, toys, food, etc. Simply put, all these visuals are manifestations of our desires & thoughts; how we “see” all of these things depending on our own influences and sponsors of literacy make them what they are in reality.

But what exactly is it about the eyes that makes them so interesting? Because it’s never enough to only understand what we see, but it is equally as important to understand WHY do we see? — ie “How do our eyes interpret our initial ideas of the world into visual imagery with no prior reference to what is real and what isn’t?” — Questioning the ability of how your eyes and brain work together may drive one insane, but it’s the perfect experiment in order to better understand these with marbles in our heads we call eyes.

From a normal perception of how the eyes and the brain work, there’s no need to break it down past the basics: The brain creates and the eyes visualize it, just like in a dream. Our minds create worlds based on references we’ve gained in real life — whether you have a dream about driving that black Maserati you never had or running in the park with the dog you’ve always wanted, it’s all acquired from real-life desires and influences from sight. Per example, I took an excerpt from a previous journal entry where I was describing a dream that visually was so real, yet I could tell it wasn’t real because of what was going on in the reality of the dream.

“Currently I am sitting in front of the woman of my dreams, having dinner at a very dim light restaurant; our attire is very elegant and lavish so I can assume that there is some sort of celebration going on between the two of us. I can vaguely see my reflection in the liquid of my glass, holding it against my face to make sure that I am me — and not dreaming of being in another vessel.”

Here you can see where I began to question my reality — something you don’t really wanna do in a dream. But it became hard not to — especially after noticing the subtle details of this pseudo-reality and what exists when I open my eyes. I noticed specific styles of tables and silverware that I used before — months ago at a dinner with a friend — or seeing cliché traits like a harpist playing a lavish, beautiful song on her gigantic, marble harp — a common trait of a romantic dinner seen in television and movies. Or even the simple fact that I was sitting in front of an apparition of my hearts desires formed into a human body; I had never met this woman before — I would have remembered if I did — yet I was having dinner with her? We were laughing and having a conversation? I don’t even know who this person in front of me really is.

By acknowledging this strange difference in what I believed was real, I began to understand my eyes were visualizing something meaningful to myself, almost like a simulation. That in this dream state, my brain was creating scenarios for me that were the basis of my hopes and desires; seated at a table enjoying my livelihood with the woman of my dreams — something we all can agree (whether male or female) is something we have desired at one point. After this realization of self-prescribed deception, I began to observe my pseudo-reality to better understand how it worked in my favor.

“The woman sitting before me is lovestruck, staring at me as if she had been waiting to see me for years. Her brown eyes — mesmerizing like the rings of Saturn — gazing deep into the back of my head, analyzing my inner thoughts — almost like she knows something is wrong. Her long brown hair flowing down her right arm while holding a glass that seems to never empty with every sip. She says to me “Is everything ok?” immediately bringing me back to my role — I believe I responded back to her because I can see her facial expression changing from curiosity to confirmation, but I pay it no mind. I’m still trying to figure out what is going on because something is not right. I shouldn’t be here, let alone be with this woman. I know that when I wake up she will not be here. I know that I will never see her again until the next time I come to this realm of dreams, but I have to know why. Why am I seeing her now?”

And here is where I almost drove myself into insanity… while sleeping. I was so confused as to whether or not I was in real life I panicked myself awake, sweating profusely and cursing at myself stating “Why did I have to go and ruin such a good dream?” But in a sense, it needed to happen — because not only did it give me the chance to live out a moment I think of every day, it gave me a better understanding of “Why?” and “How?” do we see.

This awkward distinction we have between what is real in a dream realm and what is real in the physical realm can be described in no other words but “confusing as fuck.” The second you start to get up and get dressed in a dream you assume you’re already in the motions of starting your day — that is until you wake up for the first time and realize it was all a dream. That sudden feeling of not knowing what is real and what isn’t is an effect of the powers of our eyes; the ability to see what our brains create in our dreams and what our brains analyze in real life — and our ability to create and visualize those things may hinder our ability to tell between what is real and not in the physical realm.

This dream was the beginning of a soul-searching journey that led to the study of the magnificent gaze of the human that comes from the small white spheres we call eyes. Eventually, I hypothesized that our eyes are like creators of a new world themselves; there’s no telling if what we see is simply an algorithm that enables our eyes to interpret everything we see as our “reality” like a computer program or whether or not you’re really rubbing a friendly dog’s back when walking past one or is it just a projection created to please you. I felt the best way to understand this was by using myself as a test subject — and what I found from my observation studies may or may not make sense, but it’s definitely “confusing as fuck.” By standing in front of a mirror for several hours I attempted to make a list of distinctions, actions, and connections about whether or not the reality in front of us, is what our eyes truly see.

After a long look in the mirror, I noticed our eyes contain square and circle like features inside them; the black hole of the center of the eye is, of course, the circle, however, there seems to be an invisible, yet visible shade of a square that is laid over top of the black hole. After noticing this I began to realize the magnitude and significance of our natural sight. What do we know about squares and circles? We understand that that circle is a representation of the spiritual and the square is a representation of the material — along with that, from a common understanding of gender representation we can see how over time the shape of a circle has been compared to that of a woman, and the shape of a square to be compared to that of a man. These two shapes don’t hold much relation to each other, so you may be wondering what significance these together. Well, let’s look at it from these same angles, but with a more in-depth observation.

Many would say that our reality exists within 2 realms; a material realm where we as humans live and a spiritual realm where many of us go when our time in the material has ended. These two realms somehow become connected like the idea of the square and circle — the two ideas form together to create what we know as our reality. To make even more sense of this, we can easily see how the aggregation of the square and the circle relate to that of the man, woman & creation.

Without disregarding the rights and beliefs of the LGBTQ community, we will admit there are indeed ways two individuals of the same sex can have children. However, there is a possibility of the extinction of our race if man and woman never again come together to reproduce with one another — ever again. Much like the creation of the two realms, these two beings come together to create reality as representations of the square and the circle; reality being life itself after its initial creation.

From this, I was able to conclude the hypotheses of the square & circle and its relationship with our eyes; our eyes hold the same universal laws of the creation of reality like any other creator — much like the reality of birth & death and the reality of reproduction. These squares and circles we hold in our eyes allow us to visualize what is real in the material realm as well as what we believe to be real in the spiritual… but we knew this already. It didn’t take an existential breakdown to understand how our eyes structure our reality, because we do it in our dreams constantly. Our minds brainstorm worlds in a matter of minutes and our eyes give us the pleasure of visualizing these worlds through our own lenses. In the dream realm, using your eyes to visualize and create your reality makes plenty of sense — and it’s probably the only way it will ever make sense — but when looking at this from the perspective of the material reality, here’s where it gets “confusing as fuck” again.

Let’s talk about mirrors. What is a “Mirror” anyway? In 1853, German Chemist, Justus von Liebig, created the first silver-glassed mirror that we all still use to this day. These glass panels were created as a means for us to perceive ourselves in the material realm; in order for us to understand how we as individuals looked, the mirror was created and forever changed our visual perception of the individual. We sometimes have dreams where we look in a mirror and it watch it begin to cracks or we realize what we see in the mirror isn’t our normal vessel — another term we’ll use for the body. There have even been discussions on how what we personally perceive in the mirror is completely different from what others perceive us as; our ideas and thoughts about ourselves reflect us in the mirror, however, one’s ideas and thoughts about you may reflect a different image in their heads. This power of perception is another creative power that comes with our eyes — our ability to perceive our reality a certain way based on personal feelings about the world.

Now if you haven’t spent some time looking at yourself in the mirror I would highly recommend it. Recently I spent several hours doing it — while doing research for a future short story — and it’s the reason I am writing this now. During my observation, I began to seriously question this power of visualization that we all have & whether or not reality is what it seems. If our eyes have the ability to create the imagery of our reality based on how we personally perceive the world… When we look in the mirror are we looking at our true selves? How do I know I’m not a walking cloud of stardust freely roaming a pitch black realm of emptiness? That life is merely me imagining myself in form of whatever species a homo-sapien would be… How would I know whether this is true or not? If my eyes are my world-creators, how do I know what I’m looking at is real?

While thinking this, I began to understand how this power of world-creation and visualization works along with self-identification when looking in the mirror. Mirrors themselves are a representation of the eye/I — the organ we use to see and the identification of the vessel using the organ. If what I’m looking at in the mirror is a conscious representation of my vessel, then accepting that representation is the admission of my individual acknowledgment. Yet, until the individual makes that admission they are chasing loneliness so hard to find, that they will isolate themselves from reality. This can be seen in the example of seeing yourself in a mirror in dreams; depending on how you personally perceive yourself, in reality, will reflect in that pseudo-mirror.

Through the mirror, the eyes create a self-composed visual representation of the human vessel. Without self-identification of this visual representation, one becomes lost on this existential journey we call life — By not admitting to seeing yourself through your own lenses, your world-view loses its centerpiece. Eyes do not play God by creating what you believe to be true, but it does give you the ability to witness the true nature of God’s creation. And we must learn to take advantage of our God-given gift because although we were made in their image, God was not human — our eyes see a different world than they ever could, and we must be grateful for that.

Notes & Drawings taken during the study

From this psychological roller-coaster of staring in the mirror I was gaining more than enough insight on topics I had wondered about in my spare time, but I also gained a better understanding of my original hypotheses; that because our eyes are interpreters of the ideas and desires we have about our reality, there is no true way of knowing whether or not I’m really typing on a computer right now… but does that matter? If I could truly see past this curtain of deception that is a pseudo-physical realm, would that make me happy? Would I have the same mental state as I do now if I learned that I was indeed a cumulus cloud of space dust drifting in the cosmos imagining I’m a 21-year-old writing student? — No, in all honesty, I would be mad as hell. So coming to this conclusion I realized, it doesn’t even matter. If this is the reality that my eyes have created for me they’re doing a helluva job and I couldn’t ask for a better pair. I recently thought I’d be giving my soul’s interpreter a demotion, but it seems they’ve definitely earned their position — I just had to really see it, to appreciate it.