A person without abnormalities learned to change his pupil size | Hacker News Reader

A person without abnormalities learned to change his pupil size

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42 pointsdoener11 comments

I can also do this, I discovered it one day when I noticed that I could change the brightness of what I saw, and I wondered if that was purely in my head or if it actually changed my pupil, so I repeated the experiment with my wife observing it, I think we even filmed it and sent it to one of her professors who'd like to see it.

But as the twitter thread shows, lots of people can do that.

You can write Christoph Strauch:

https://twitter.com/c_strauch/status/1428290953035538436

> But as the twitter thread shows, lots of people can do that.

Only seen a few videos there but they all seem to have a distinct-but-not-fully opening and closing of the eyelids happening at the same time - when the eyelids close, the pupil grows; when they open, it shrinks.

Which suggests a certain amount of autonomic reaction to changing light conditions rather than controlling the pupil itself? I guess you'd have to demonstrate it without any eyelid movement to control for that.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160229-the-sea-nomad-ch...

Not a new thing

How about moving one eyeball? https://youtu.be/FaC2RXBss2c

These sorts of quirks indicate to me that we may have much more conscious control than we assume.

Wow that was awesome and so easy to do.

That is very interesting. I have just been to some clinics to get examined for laser eye surgery and found that I am not a good candidate because my pupils get too big at night.

I wonder if learning this skill could fix that.

Huh, I this is something like raising one eyebrow. A lot of people can do it, not everyone. I can do this, but never thought anything of it.

I also do it to relax mysef or to dig deeper in my thoughts

I can do this. Not extraordinary at all.

Don't beat yourself up, you being able to do this doesn't mean it's normal/expected. Also:

"Do you know anyone who can do the same? Interested in hearing about this case in more detail at a lab meeting, any thoughts/ideas – get in touch!"

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