Walking With Your Eyes Closed

For the last little while, I’ve been playing around with walking with my eyes closed. One can actually get fairly good at navigating.

The thing I’ve found most interesting is that you can tell when you’re close to a large object. I think it’s a combination of airflow being different around them and ambient sound being different.

Here’s an experiment for you: stand with your back to a wall, just a little ways away. Sway back and forth, step away and towards, et cetera, and feel the difference. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

This might not seem like much, but being able to know when your about to walk into a wall, in combination with a general idea for the layout of the area, is enough, in my experience, to walk around with miniumal trouble. If there isn’t clutter like chairs and cords for you to trip on….

If you live in a apartment/condo building, your halls are probably a good location to practice.

Some other comments: If it isn’t dark around you, you can also use visual cues from the light getting though your eyelids. It’s also a little nervracking to walk around like this at first.

Tags: perception