Blindsight—Seeing What We Can't See

Because I’ve always written primarily by the seat of my pants, beginning with just an idea and a vague destination, I really want to try out a new approach, which is not new at all—outlining. Part of this approach entails theme (although knowing the theme up front is not absolutely necessary, it’s supposed to be really helpful, and I need all the help I can get!). The theme should help the outline take shape, running its thread throughout and tying everything together. I have never consciously assigned a theme to my stories up front, though by the time I type THE END, the theme is pretty clear.

For my next project, I've been mulling over ideas and keep coming back to a couple of possibilities, one of which I stumbled upon quite by accident. It has to do with the title of this project “Blind Sighted.” Yeah, it's sort of a play on the word blindsided, but it also alludes to the fact that the mother of one of the main characters believes her son is blind—but he’s not! Yes, she’s delusional.

In the process of researching delusional disorders and simply typing “blind sighted” into Google, I came across the medical term, Blindsight. Well, now, this is quite fascinating, I thought, and serendipitous! Blindsight, according to Wikipedia, is the ability of people who are cortically blind due to lesions in their striate cortex … to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see. This cartoon* nicely illustrates it:

So, this idea of responding to visual stimuli without consciously “seeing” it fascinates me! Metaphorically, this seems like something I could expand upon as a theme. I mean, when it comes to relationships, we often tend to wear blinders—it can be very difficult to see a person as they really are. Sometimes, if they are highly-motivated actors, it may takes years. But meanwhile, we generally respond to individuals and navigate relationships intuitively—without conscious reasoning. That may work for a period of time, but often when there is some sort of upheaval, we may suddenly see what we have been previously blind to. Now, add a delusional layer, and I have all sorts of fodder for tension and conflict.

Do we see what we need or want to see in an individual? What happens when imagination or fantasy or delusion meets reality? I can tell you that it is very messy!

*image by Jolyon Troscianko