Paroptic vision is the alleged ability to see without the eyes. It first sounds like science fiction, but there is certainly a lot of attention and study on paroptic vision throughout the years, with varying degrees of conclusiveness. Some sources say that anyone who has claimed paroptic vision is simply lying, while others say it’s a latent ability anyone can learn. Here I present all the discourse so you can make your own designation.
What is Paroptic vision?
Paroptic vision is the notion that people can potentially see with organs other than their eyes, maybe even well enough to identify colors, objects, and print. Paroptic is a contraction of the term para-optical, para– meaning “apart from” and “optical” referring to the visible sight using the eyes. Related, “dermo-optical perception” (DOP) is when that locus of sight is in the skin. These may or may not fall under “extra-sensory perception” (ESP) depending on if the mode of sensation is within what we consider typical already.
I must emphasize that paroptic vision is completely distinct from “blindsight” – the skill that blind people have to perceive their surroundings. Blindsight usually will rely on other cues, such as subtle noises and smells. Paroptic vision is sight without use of the eyes, but the eyes can still be fully functioning, just closed or otherwise not involved in the vision.
Though paroptic vision seems like a topic easily dismissed, it gained a lot of attention throughout the 1900s. For example, formal studies from honorable universities were endowed hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to study paroptic vision. The FBI and CIA also gave resources to study the possibility and claims, along with government agencies and scholarly institutions in Russia, China, and Europe. First, here’s how paroptic vision entered the public’s awareness.
An Overview of the Timeline of Paroptic Vision
In the 17th century there were accounts of synesthasia resembling eyeless sight. With synesthasia, someone mixes up their senses, for example, tasting numbers, or hearing colors. Those accounts predate most of the hype around paroptic vision that happened in the 1900s, and there’s not any clear references to paroptic vision before that.
Then, in the 1920’s, a book published in French, Eyeless Sight: Extra-retinal Vision and the Paroptic Sense, by Jules Romains, popularized the idea amongst cult-like circles. Around that time, magic performers and claimed psychics also put the possible superpower of eyeless sight in the collective consciousness.
In 1960’s there were independent clusters of claimants to the “superpower,” and it caught the attention of reputable institutions of research. But soon after, debunkers easily explained the trick, and it fell out of fashion.
There was some brief pushback against the skeptics, but all research on paroptic vision basically stopped from the late 1960s onward, other than by “parapsychlogy” sects.
The Untouched and Unseen Modern Connection
Paroptic vision may be explainable by other receptors in the skin. In 1998, a discovery in biology leads to a definitive possibility, even if all the test subjects were indeed frauds. There are strong connections between the paroptic vision “organs” postulated by early studies and these new-found skin receptors.
In fact, I began this article intending to only interested in discussing the function of melanopsin, the recently discovered light receptor in the skin. But instead I ventured into developing a whole picture of the yeasayers and naysayers of eyeless sight, to support my intial thought that melanopsin may confer a type of unconscious, latent sense of sight. Even those mainly interested in the “paranormal” possibility of paroptic vision may find the linkages in my inspection of peer-reviewed, 21st-century biology studies, to be pretty fascinating.
The First Mentions of Paroptic Vision
Some say the first case of derma-optical perception, as well as synaesthesia, comes from a 1710 medical report. (Larner 2006, Brugger 2008) This case is a physician treating a blind man by the name Thomas Woodhouse. Those authors reinforce that people knew about such conditions in general by citing fictional descriptions of synthesasia in Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726). Swift knew scientist Robert Boyle, through a friend named Dr. Finch, where he may have gotten the idea to include in his story. Dr. Finch specially studied brain anatomy. But Boyle’s primary account may really the first insertion of the idea that “people might can see with their skin.” Here’s the exact text from his 1664 study on color:
“The Man’s name was John Vermaasen, at that time about 33 Years of Age; that when he was but two years Old, he had the Small Pox, which rendred him absolutely Blind: That at this present he is an Organist, and serves that Office in a publick Quire.
That the Doctor [Dr. Finch] discoursing with him over Night, the Blind man affirm’d, that he could distinguish Colours by the Touch, but that he could not do it, unless he were Fasting; Any quantity of Drink taking from him that Exquisitness of Touch, which is requisite to so Nice a Sensation.
That hereupon the Doctor provided against the next Morning seven pieces of Ribbon, of these seven Colours [..] That to discern the Colour of the Ribbon, he places it betwixt the Thumb and the Fore-finger, but his most exquisite perception was in his Thumb, and much better in the right Thumb than in the left.
That after the Blind man had four or five times told the Doctor the several Colours, (though Blinded with a Napkin for fear he might have some Sight) the Doctor found he was twice mistaken[…]”
Robert Boyle, Experimental History of Colours (1664), Chp. III. Yes, he uses old English spellings.
Being wrong twice of five trials are not great odds, as you may notice. But the passage may still have influenced those who read Boyle’s work.
With the works of Boyle and Swift perhaps as a precursor, there may have been bubbles stewing in the late 1700s. By the mid-1800s, there were several performers demonstrating paroptic vision.
Magic Performers Bring Paroptic Vision to the Fringes: 1800s-1900
Many magic acts in the 1800s found blindfolded tricks captivated the crowd. These acts predate the clusters of claims of people seeing without eyes “for real.” In performances, the audience is aware the act uses a trick, even if no one can figure out how it’s done.
| 1831 | Louis Gordon M’Kean* |
| 1820s-1840s | Mysterious Lady Tours (information here), may have gotten the idea from M’Kean, popularized the “second sight” trick, from whom Robert Houdin allegedly developed the idea |
| 1848 | Robert Houdin, the first popular performer of “second sight” |
| 1856-1889 | Washington Irving Bishop, blindfolding driving/thought reader tricks |
| 1826-1910 | Andrew Jackson Davis “Poughkeepsie Seer”* |
| 1847-1913 | Antionette Matterson, clairvoyant doctor* |
| 1890-1960 | Harlan Tarbell, “speaks of his own work in this field as a direct result of his interest in Romains’ [Eyeless Sight]”, Gardner in 1954 Tarbell Course in Magic |
| 1905-1981 | Kuda Bux, read books, solved math problems, identified objects, with a turban covering his face and dough covering his eyes |
| Others | Joseph Dunninger, Stanley Jaks, Samuel Johnson |
Harlan Tarbell, magician and mental scientist (1932) pic.twitter.com/0zhLuqZgh6
— Mariano Tomatis (@marianotomatis) September 26, 2015
Many then knew paroptic vision as a magic trick, with many ways of accomplishing the feat even outside the simple “peeking.” It makes you wonder why so many took the claimants of the “real” ability so seriously with no extra precautions. Also note that technology advanced quite a bit during this time. It’s not good form to reveal the secrets of magicians, but here is one document explaining ways of the “second-sight” tricks known in the trade, with technology sometimes used.
People Who Claimed to Have Paroptic Vision “for real”
There were a few claimants of “supernatural” paroptic vision in the 1920s and 1930s. But, formal research was only spawned later on during the Cold War era. For those familiar with performance magic, I suspect the novelty of the trick had already worn off. Yet, somehow, these cases fascinated tabloids and even got professional investigators involved.
The cluster of claimants in the 1960’s began with a Russian woman named Rosa. Just like the contagion of dancing mania, after one person got attention, soon there were many other reports of blind-reading or finger-reading ability. Russia loves funding somewhat paranormal research questions, so they started on the move conducting studies into the actual statistics behind these alleged abilities.
| Joaquín Argamasilla | 1920s Spain | Claimed to see through objects, convinced physicians Gustav Geley and Charles Richet. Houdini believed Joaquín had ways of peeking (i.e. refused to perform with Houdini’s own boxes). Joaquín’s father promoted him. |
| Pat Marquis | 1930s America | Parapsychologist J.B. Rhine tested Marquis after he gained popularity in California. Rhine determined Marquis was peeking and copying another famous “psychic” |
| Rosa Kuleshova | 1960s Russia | 1963 time magazine popularized the story, she was studied by Russian scientists |
| Nina (Ninel) Kulagina | 1960s Russia | Heard about Rosa on the radio. She demonstrated blindfolded: dates on coins, picking colors from a bag. Studied by: Keil, Herbert, Pratt, and Ullman |
| Linda Anderson | 1960s America | Claimed to find missing bodies and wasted people’s resources doing so. (More information) (Many still make these “crime-solver psychic” claims on Tiktok.) |
| Margaret Foos | 1960s America | Identified colors and objects blindfolded, played checkers, identified balloon color from 400 feet, according to this interesting source. Veterans Administration Center in Washington, D.C. tested her. 40 page FBI memorandum |
| Others: | Eileen Garrett (1892-1970, Ireland), Lena Bliznova, Ronald Coyne, housewife Patricia Stanley (studied by Youtz) |
Alleged Psychics Studied
Pat Marquis
Pat Marquis was 12 years old when J.B. Rhine visited in 1936. J.B. Rhine (1895-1980), a researcher in the branch of “abnormal psychology”, is considered to be the “founder” of parapsychology, though he formally studied botany. He exposed frauds regularly.
"J.B. Rhine is an Ass." -Arthur Conan Doyle, ~1927
— AbnormalWays (@AbnormalWaysWeb) January 5, 2024
Marquis had an alternate personality under trance, named Napeji, an 11th century Persian. Eileen Garrett, who was also tested by Rhine 5 years earlier in 1931, had an alternative middle-eastern personality as well. Some think another physician, Dr. Reynolds, who studied Garett earlier too, gave him the idea for the “middle-eastern alternative personality”. Her skills were on par with chance. Rhine himself determined blindfold-peeking by Marquis. He blindfolded himself the same way and could see through it. (Stacy Horn’s research including letters from physicians and investigators)
But still the Marquis family convinced Life magazine enough for a 1937 article, called “The boy with X-ray Eyes”. Despite that, the topic did not gain attention from researchers in the USA until Russia studied it later on.
Rose Kuleshova
In the 1960s, Rosa, was the next popularized alleged sufferer of paroptic vision. A Life article explained her background, making the feat a little more believable: Many of Rosa’s family members, from the Urals town of Nizhni Tagil, were blind. Thus, Rosa had learned braille reading and became as familiar with it as sighted reading. “Her senses of touch and sight had become practically interchangeable. Had Rosa developed her Braille touch so highly that she could feel the shapes of characters in letterpress printing?” speculates the 1964 article.
In the studies of Rosa, she could not read if glass was placed over the page, but could still read large lettering if well-lit. She also reported a sythesasic feeling of colors ..”The Russian experts can only assume that Rosa Kuleshova has in her fingertips a network of fine nerve endings that are sensitive to light.” Scientists S.Dobronravov, Y.Fishelev, & I.Goldberg (Bib) published papers studying her, but none of the studies were robust enough to convince later skeptics.
Government Intelligence Agencies Study Margaret Foos
The study investigating Margaret Foos’ claims began in 1957. Because her father was so adamant and they lived near D.C., the Veteran’s Administration eventually did a formal study.
Attempts at Empirical Studies: Russia & China
Historian Annie Jacobsen wrote in The Secret History of .. Extrasensory Perception about government’s willingness to study paroptic vision. Russia outlawed paranormal research until the Cold War dynamics sparked interest in its possible espionage benefits. In Russia, the nomenclature around ESP was rewritten to sound more technical to distance it from occult topics. For example, as Jacobsen says: “mental telepathy became ‘long-distance biological systems transmissions.’ Psychokinesis (moving physical objects with the mind) became ‘non-ionizing, in particular electromagnetic, emissions from humans.'”
Russia had some success in determining if an ability such as paroptic vision might be possible, via, for example, sensing temperature in very granular detail. Those studies had the most merit when it came to challenging the debunkers.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government decided to team up with China and compile what they might know about paroptic vision. That disclosure took until 1982 to come together, and compiled much of China’s research on the matter up until then.
Interestingly, the Chinese researchers had subjects remote view light-sensitive film, and checking with radar if any electromagnetic radiation, in or out of the visible light spectrum, contacted the film during “viewing”. They recorded a power 100 mW of light on the film at the time of viewing, saying this compares similarly to the order of magnitude seen in studies done on acupuncture and qi gong practices. The Chinese researchers also noted the complicated spatial distribution of the incoming light, compared with for example, laser beam. From this, the Chinese basically conclude that extraordinary human body functions “exist” and are inherent/latent in most.
The case of derma-optical perception with the most coverage involved children that could read words on folded papers put in their ears. In 1981 and 1982 scholars went to China and found the youngins flagrantly cheating, as described in the above document in its entirety here.
The Face-off Between True Believers & Skeptics
Every person in the table above was determined capable of cheating given the design of the experiments. This fact was finely detailed in an opinion piece in 1966 by well-respected mentalism expert Martin Gardner. The subjects weren’t tested under conditions rigorous enough to “prove” anything. The scientists thought the trials were tight, but someone experienced in magic could find many loop-holes.
(Rightful) Skepticism Towards Paroptic Vision
Unlike magic performers, for which “the show must go on”, psychics often suffer from random conditions that prevent their abilities. Usually this would happen when experimenters changed the protocol to try to exclude the possibility of cheating. Parapsychologists often shield it as the “shyness” effect.
Martin Gardner’s Smoking Guns
Martin Gardener somewhat quelled the interest by explaining blindfolds were fallible. He was a recreational mathematics popularizer who also took an interest in dispelling sight-feeling phenomena. He dedicated both a paper in 1966 and a chapter in his 2003 book Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries? to the subject.
In his 1966 paper, Dermo-optical Perception, Gardner mentions performers of paroptic vision like Kuda Bux and Harlan Tarbell. Just like in the studies, their eyes are completely covered, including with adhesive tape and dough. Gardner claims that simple nose-peeking is always possible.
A Peek Down the Nose
In each case of reported paroptic vision, both press and research, Gardner finds that “nose-peeking” is possible. Magicians know that regular blindfolds, even with cotton or adhesive over the eye, are relatively easy to see through. Small cracks or “vacuums” around the edge provide a gap. Many times the claimants could not repeat the successes under circumstances more stringent than a basic blindfold. They blamed various environmental factors: too cold, too hot, too fatigued, etc.
Sniffing, nodding, scratching one’s neck, and other common gestures provide the space to see through the blindfold. Gardner notes that subjects usually cease to “see” in darkened rooms. He suggests the researchers use an aluminum box down to the shoulders rather than a blindfold. From a mentalist point of view, this would suffice a control.
What Gardner states is definitely true for the purposes of magic tricks, but this doesn’t necessarily mean every claimed person was simply.. peeking. We just need an experiment devised that makes cheating impossible.
Makous’s thermal Hypothesis
One of Gardner’s few concessions is the truth of a thermal sensation learned by blind people to distinguish colors. American researcher Makous’s work makes an explicit exclusion of light receptors in the skin, making an argument for paroptic vision on thermal sensitivity alone. (Makous still carries out research to this day.)
“The possibility that differences in heat reflected by colors might be detectable by fingers was suggested by the research of Walter L. Makous, of IBM’s Watsom Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, New York. He reported his work in “Cutaneous Color Sensitivity” [see sources]. To prevent his subjects from seeing the test material, he used an opaque screen under which arms could be thrust, and an opaque apron tied about the neck and and over the head. […] Whether or not he used such a box [as I recommended] is not clear. Makous found that fingers could distinguish between a polished metal plate that reflected light, and a plate painted black to absorb light. He speculated that there might be sufficient heat differences between red and blue objects to enable a blind person, with practice, to discriminate between them [by the sense of touch].”
Gardner, A Peek Down the Nose
The same work of Makous discusses an experiment that seems to be a precursor to the discovery of melanopsin in frogs in 1998. They found the skin reacting to flashes of light on its own. This is evidence of a dermal light sense. (The experiment he cited as Becker and Cone, but when I looked it up the author’s name is Recker, see complete bib.)
Brugger, in 2008, took Makous’ research more seriously. They stated “dermo-optical perception was finally freed from paranormal connotations by the American psychologist Walter Makous. His empirical research showed that the phenomenon relies on subjects’ sensitivity to thermal exchanges between the skin and colored objects, even in complete darkness[,] [..] radiant exchange between the hands and an object placed in immediate vicinity by far exceeds threshold values for cutaneous temperature discrimination.” This idea holds up decently over time, but does not explain everything needed for a mechanism of paroptic vision, nor has been sufficiently repeated. What is true is that objects of different colors have different heat-reflecting properties. And what’s true for color could be true for print if the spatial discrimination is fine enough. (i.e. feeling around black/white shapes to discern words).
Responses to Gardner: the Researchers Fire Back
“Significant progress frequently is not made by demonstrating the existence of a phenomenon or theory, but rather by failure to prove it.”
Peter K. Kaiser 1983
May of 1966, Science (Volume 152, Issue 3725) published FOUR response articles, from Youtz, Weintraub, Makous, and Buckhout, all responding to Gardner’s 1966 paper.
Youtz responded to Gardner about the way he did his experiment:
“[The subject] was required to put her arms into the box containing the stimuli through thick black sleeves fastened around holes in the box and tight around her wrists, and she wore a sleep mask. She could not, as Gardner suggested, have poked the stimuli up a sleeve and used a “nose-peek,” nor could she have observed the test material as it was being placed in the experimental box.”
Youtz, Science 1966
“As any magician will tell you, scientists are the easiest to fool. They are used to investigating a universe that always plays fair. Laboratory animals and electrons don’t cheat, but humans do..
— AbnormalWays (@AbnormalWaysWeb) January 4, 2024
In the same Science issue, Makous spoke his piece:
“The ability of human subjects to discriminate between objects on the basis of differences in their emissivities was tested [..] in a “completely” dark room [..] with electronic monitoring against physical contact between the subjects and the test objects; with skeptical subjects, with subjects having no previous interest in magic or in mentalism, and with a totally blind subject; [..] [an apron] snugly tied around the subject’s neck and bound around his head in a way that restricted vision as effectively as the box described by Gardner; and with a double-blind procedure to eliminate suggestion and to preclude even telepathy. Of the five subjects who were tested carefully, none failed to perform significantly above chance in the ten trials given. The three subjects further tested since the publication of Gardner’s article have performed equally successfully while wearing a box of the kind he described. Anyone can, in an hour or two, prove to himself his ability to discriminate via his cutaneous senses between radiant exchanges with objects of differing emissivities [..] by holding his hand half an inch from the surface and attending to thermal sensations.”
Makous, Science 1966
In the same issue, Buckhout criticizes the statistical methods used. The scientists claim some people are gifted and score above average, with their scores raising over time. But rather than honing the skill, Buckhout points out this could be explained by tapping other dimensions of recognition or even learning to nose peek. He also mentions they throw out the just-as-many subjects that score below average, skewing results, and doctor what is statistically significant to scale with the data collected.
Jacobson:
Besides the surge of experiments in the 1960s, few efforts were more recently made outside of “parapsychology” studies, such as those done by the Targs in the 1970s, which are not well respected in academia. (Elizabeth Targ did the famous “Do Prayers help AIDS patients “study”.)
A bit of a puzzle hence enchanted many with the possible variations of studying paroptic vision. Some subjects could see better in dim light, some lost the ability under random conditions like humidity. Some could tell colors but not letters, or vice versa. In part, the science may have sped up temporarily because of the great number of variables that were not studied yet, and stopped just as quickly with the loss of respect and subsequent loss of funding.
Does Jules Romain’s Eyeless Sight Predict Melanopsin 70 years in Advance?
There is one long-form formal work on paroptic vision, Eyeless Sight by Jules Romains. Martin Gardner calls this a “classic crank work” in his 2003 book, Are Blueberries Thicker than Universes? He states Romains was “supremely ignorant of how to prevent cheating.” Even if all Romain’s experiments involved cheating by the subjects, I argue the conclusions he draws are inadvertently important.
In 1998 melanopsin, a photoreceptor in the skin, was discovered in a niche field at the intersection of dermatology and neurobiology. I had already studied melanopsin before reading Eyeless Sight. When I came across Romain’s precise description of the hypothesized responsible organs, the strong resemblance to melanopsin receptors in the skin was eerily obvious. The hard evidence for the presence of such a receptor that now exists makes the theoretical mechanism much more robust, even if at the time it was all pure speculation. I think that the frauds had indeed faked it. But that doesn’t wholly implicate that the skill is impossible.
Romains makes a point to call out radical skepticism as a “lazy attitude” and a “primitive line of arguement”. He seems to think the scientists do not give the subjects enough credit, the opposite of what Gardner thinks, that they give far too much.
Romains believes Paroptic Vision is a “Latent Function”
“I first see lots of things which dance . . . then everything becomes gradually connected.”
Jules Romains, on the awakening of latent function recounted by a test subject.
He appeals that paroptic vision as an innate human function had maybe at one point been used. But gradually the knowledge of it faded, yet the vestigial organ and mechanism remained. According to Romains, since it takes practice and knowledge to re-awaken “extra-retinal” vision, it stays buried. He likens the ability to “an organ which atrophies in a latent state – asleep in some way, through thousands of generations and await, in order to awake with all its vigor and fullness.” He also claims that extra-retinal vision evolutionarily preceded the eye. (In terms of biology, researchers did first suspect melanopsin was only present in invertebrates, until 2012, when they confirmed it in mice.)
Romains’ writing is charismatic, the reader wants to believe him. He comes off earnest, but perhaps disillusioned. He seems to try being overly technical to gain legitimacy by including ray diagrams and proof-like breakdowns that logically are really little use. His reasons for why so few have “awakened” paroptic vision is because it is so difficult and subtle to train.
“[To train this,] the effort is no small one, even for a subject who knows where he is going and possesses some indications of the route to be followed. The sort of attention required is exactly the sort least familiar to man in modern societies. And if men in some vanished society had suspected or even practiced extra-retinal vision, what would we know of it? Every time that a piece of evidence from a far-distant past seems to affirm the existence of some mental function which we do not posses, have we not the convenient habit of rejecting it as absurd or legendary?”
An example of Romains “persuasive” writing style
According to Romains, it takes 5-10 attempts of multiple hours each, on average, for people to awaken the first signs of eyeless sight. With regards to the receptors’ inputs still working in the background, he says:
“The ordinary consciousness of man does not receive them, either they are lost in some nervous centre, without giving rise to any psychic event, or they may perhaps, enrich some secondary consciousness, outside the traditional frontiers of our personality.”
Romains, Eyeless Sight
And this actually coincides with the modern knowledge of melanopsin entraining subtle yet significant bodily processes, such as circadian rhythm in response to light duration and quality.
He says the subjects may train by employing “perceptive attention” which modern man has forgotten. He refers to the difference in reading and problem-solving attention versus “truly fixed attention”. Such attention is perhaps taught, he says, by the ascetics, Christian ecstatics, and other spiritual sects, similar to the difference in imagining versus perceiving.
Romains’ Experiments
To explain those particularly “gifted” with paroptic vision, he invokes hyperaesthesia – a condition in which people are overly sensitive to touch, such as heat vibration and pressure. The skin is the organ associated with the sense of touch, therefore its sensations are generally attributed to touch. But there are examples of skin taking input without direct contact, for example, passing over a hot stove (the thermal perception). These touch receptors are the Meissner, Ruffini, and Pacini, for example, in the skin.
Corpúsculos receptores de la dermis.
— 𝕒Ň𝔸т𝓞𝕄𝒾℃ 🫀 (@AnatomiaTips) August 25, 2021
Meissner: Resposables del tacto fino.
Krause: Proporcionan la sensación de frío.
Pacini: Dan la sensación de presión.
Ruffini: Son sensibles al calor.
Merkel: Son responsables del tacto.
Golgi: son los encargados de la
propiocepción. pic.twitter.com/OBiSljZU3q
Meissner: Responsible for fine touch.
Krause: They provide the sensation of cold.
Pacini: They give the sensation of pressure.
Ruffini: They are sensitive to heat.
Merkel: They are responsible for touch.”
Some scientists believe hearing evolved from touch, as the hair sensors in our ears just feel the moving air, as we feel a breeze, but more sensitive. So the sense of touch being intermingled with sight as well is not so far out.
Were Romains’ Experiments faked?
In Romain’s experiments, it doesn’t seem the subjects had any real incentive to “win” the game by cheating. He may have wanted earnest answers about if anyone could be taught eyeless sight, and where the subjects felt the perception was localized. Romains also did the experiments for himself of sheer curiosity and scientific intent, as I interpret it. In the case that it’s 100% fraud, he would have somehow convinced himself that he was not peeking.
Romains describes his own results: no results (30 hours), rudimentary results (30 hours), more perfected results (10 hours), remarkable extension (25 hours). He claims that though monotonous, the results are indeed repeatable. If we believe these logged hours, would he practice so long to be able to see through the blindfold, without realizing he is simply peeking all along? So much is weighted on the credibility of Jules Romains (or should I say ..Louis Henri Jean Farigoule).
Romains had an idea that sniffing helped people find colors. This is embarrassing in light of Gardner’s observations. Known nose-peekers would sniff, among other facial muscle contractions, in order to create gaps in the blindfold. Romains thinks smelling is related, that the organs could be in the nose. He even says the effect is not as great when the nose is plugged.
But, if all one needs to do is try it for themselves, put on a blindfold, and recognize they are peeking – this work would be easily proven a waste of time. Are they peeking without realizing it and thinking they are seeing from somewhere else? Besides the nose, he also correlates better skill with the amount of skin exposed. Most of the subjects were women – is he doing this to get a peek himself at them? 😉 He thinks the most sensitive to light regions are the hands, neck, cheeks, forehead, and chest (but not nipples?).
Romains’ Ocelli – The Organs of Extra-Retinal Vision
In 1924 when Eyeless Sight hit the shelves, microbiology as a field had just begun. At this time, the resolving power of microscopes was already at the 500-1000x range, but the use was not widespread enough for many proteins to be identified yet. He believes the organs of paroptic vision have to be “microscopic.”
“We are, then inevitably led to this conclusion: extra-retinal vision is brought about by n apparatus or microscopic organs of the magnitude of histological elements. These organs are so distributed that a limited region of the periphery – a few square centimeters of surface – contains at least one and probably several of them. They must, besides, have multiple nervous relations with one another, which make possible the coordination and the synthesis of their data.”
Eyeless Sight
List of Proposed Features of the Ocelli:
- images are formed without participation of the retina
- there is/are some other organ(s) receiving luminous stimulus*
- the stimulus is processed in the nervous system, so it’s hooked up to the brain*
- subjects acquire the latent function after training
- the organ could be the size of 1000 micrometers to 50,000 micrometers in size
- light has to fall on the object because these organs also see by way of light*, but can see relatively better in dim light compared with eyes
- the receptor organs must be numerous and distributed, such as in the hands, neck, etc*
- Because there are so many it doesn’t have to form a good image alone*: “a hundred bad photographs of the same object, provided they are slightly different from one another, give us by synthesis as many details about the object as a good photograph”
- The human eye would have to be 6m deep to get its 1/3000 resolving strength without refractive equipment. Therefore the DOP resolution of 1/100 (approx), based on those scales the organ would be 200-500 micrometers if it was an organ possessing similar refractive power as the eye. But since it’s many organs they can be much smaller, predicted to be the size of cells (~1-10micrometers) (note: melanopsins are a transmembrane protein, therefore much smaller than a single cell)
- The resolving strength falls when more skin is covered
- The organs communicate with each other or through a central nervous system location*
- Must be somewhere in the skin, oriented parallel to take in the light, consisting of some sub-elements*
- the organ can refract light and has basically a miniature retina or miniature eye with nerve endings (not exactly, but melanopsin shares features with rods & cones from the eye)
- He compares with sweat glands being an extension of kidney function, supporting that organ systems can be “distributed”. The functions of skin are always designated as tactile, without knowing the parts of the brain receiving them (if melanopsin did have an analagous organ from what we know so far, it would be the pituitary and amyglada glands)
These are directly from the book. I put asterisks next to all the ones that DO match for sure what we know about melanopsin so far. Practically all of these describe melanopsin except the size, which is smaller than 1000 micrometers. Romains does make a mention of melanin though not by name. He says “the basilar layer is the seat, in certain individuals and races, of a pigmentation which sometimes becomes very abundant, and which stops almost all penetration of light into the skin.” This is more on point than Boyle at least, who thought that darker skin made one less tolerant to the sun. The basics of melanin is that it acts like a sunscreen, and this is now common knowledge. Now we are going to step into the present and discuss melanopsin!
How can one see with the skin? (Real science)
Melanopsin. The actual topic of this whole post. These auxiliary skin receptors, only first found in 1998, are still not well understood. Many of the studies I found looking for the function of melanopsin are very recent. The most informative are from post-2020! So it’s not too surprising no one seemingly has dared to make the association between melanopsin and paroptic vision.
What we discuss now is just the light portion of Romains’ theory in the context of post-millennial biology. Besides temperature, the skin does have light receptors. This is partially understood because we tan or get freckles in sun exposure. The skin photoreceptors respond to light like the rods and cones of the eye (rhodopsin, photopsin), but they are a lot more complex.
These receptors of the -opsin family are found not only in skin, but brain, reproductive system, liver, the retina itself, and so many other “random” organs.. some of which, oddly, really don’t get external light. They might serve extra purposes receiving internally generated light, but we really know nothing about that yet. (Bokkon 2008, de Aussis 2023)
Actual Findings of Retinal Components in the Skin
In order to study such small and sensitive cellular components, the best tool is gene-editing organisms without the receptors and comparing populations. Biologists tend to start the studies with aquatic model organisms and then work their way up the evolutionary tree to humans, that way they can know exactly what they’re looking for by time they do human studies.
Though melanopsin was discovered in 1998, that was in frogs. It took another 20 years or so to work their way up through fishes and mice to confirm its presence in human skin. Kusumoto, Junya, et al (2020) say in their abstract: “we showed that the human skin functions as a photoreceptor by demonstrating that in human skin, the photoreceptive protein was expressed, and photoreception was conducted via photoreceptive protein.” So it’s not just frogs or mice. We know by undebatable microbiologic evidence that humans have a lot of these all over our skin.
Meet the Opsin Family
Opsins are all a class of proteins in the cell membrane that change shape when they absorb light, called photoisomerization. The change in shape binds with other compounds that serve to mediate their concentration and behavior, in their own feedback loop, among others. In this way, the photoisomerization affects hormones, genetic expression, and more.
Rods and cones in the eyes, are the most well-studied opsins. These are mostly rhodopsin and photopsin. You can read all about photoreceptors in the eyes here. We know these capture light and pass the signals through the retina to the brain.
There are some opisns that are abundant in the pineal gland, including pinopsin, parapinopsin, parietopsin. These are cillary opsins and move around in the membranes. Scattered throughout various organ systems are the OPN3, OPN4 (melanopsin), and OPN5. We think that so many types of opsins evolved to aid in image forming as well as reflex and subconscious functions mediated by light, heat, and electromagnetic signals.
Each opsin has its own behavior and functions. Different spectral sensitivities help with sensing time of day by quality of light and spectral composition. For example, the amount of blue or yellow light, and the duration can cause different cascades in the cell. We also know the presence of the pigment retinal increases the photoisomerization efficiency and spectral tuning, just like in the rods and cones that rely on retinal.
Melanopsin: The Light Receptor in the Skin
Melanopsin, like the other opsins in the skin, is a protein spanning the membrane of our cells. It’s of similar structure to the opsins within the rods and cones in our eyes in terms of the number of “passes” it makes through the membrane, and general shape.
When melanopsin was discovered in 1998, right away they noticed how it was more complex and diverse than the rods and cones receptors. (This part is very compressed and for biochemsitry nerds mainly.) It’s a type of ‘g-coupled protein receptor’, just like those rhodopsin and phtopsin, consisting of 7 helical transmembrane domains and and +3+3 intra/extracellular loops. The portion spanning the membrane binds chromaphore 11-cis retinal. Melanopsin changes 11-cis retinal to all trans-retinal, photoconverting active bound retinal under 480 nm light. Its 2nd peak, at 430 nm, triggers this conversion for 7-cis retinal. These are bistable and bleach resistant. Blue light turns it on and yellow off. Phosphorylation can deactivate it by PKA, activated by dopamine. Melanopsin also has a long time frame of reaction, 3-6.5 hours duration of exposure, latency, and post-stimulus discharge. (Guido, 2020)
Melanopsin is both dark and light adapted, associated with non-image forming vision. I discussed this in my articles about the pineal gland, in which there is also a high concentration of melanopsin receptors.
Note that the processes involved in vision and in non-vision forming photoreceptors (and every other cellular process in the body) are described via cascades. This is like a map of what activates what and a sequence of chemical and conformational changes to accomplish the action. But in the complex cascades every step has a chance to be modulated by something outside the system that affects the efficacy or concentration. This is why more studies are still elucidating melanopsin’s exact significance.
Hypothalamic regulatory centers show melanopsin changing immunoreactivity in mice. Fibers found to go from the melanopsin to amyglada, mood-regulating centers, and “affective functions”, vaguely put, but that’s as far as we can tell so far. Melanopsin should also contribute somehow to image forming vision, says the authors, a win for Romains’ hunches. The authors think image forming vision is modulated by melanopsin because of its changes due to irradiance/brightness, its role in fast visual responses (startle reflexes were affected, in mice), and ability to encode spatial patterns. Blind people with no rod or cone function detect brainwave alpha changes with 480 nm light changes due to melanopsin’s activity. And, for sighted people, this could rightly be considered another visual photoreceptor because it does pass info to the visual cortex.
Melanopsin’s Unkown Role in the Skin
Non-image forming vision has to do with spatial visual perception, going to all major brain regions that also receive information from the retina. Melatonin regulation and circadian light detection still happens in those born blind. The importance of chronobiology is also shown in feeding rhythms of chickens, regulating when they get hungry to coincide with optimum digestion. They have cascades that end up releasing calcium and cell depolarization again. They could be horizontal cells that “lost their way”, as horizontal cells organize, inhibit, balance inputs in the retina. HCs could be ancient vestiges. Photopigment expression in cyclic light (Guido, 2020). Horizontal cells are discussed as part of the retina in my photoreceptors post.
Melanopsin also aids biological clocks. “Biological clocks” are innate mechanisms that control physiological processes based on the time of day, day, season, year, etc. Often changes in genetic expression, such as transcription factors “deciding” with genes to turn off and on display biological clock mechanisms. The hypothalamus coupled with the light-dark cycles in the retina is the main pacemaker in mammals. Circadian rhythm in animal studies means that the animals have natural schedules they keep to they run on the wheel and feel like eating versus sleeping.
Since then, it’s been a matter of research to determine how melanopsin exactly works. de Lauro Castrucci et al. 2023, abstract states : “Currently, opsins are considered light as well as thermosensors in the skin.” Their review work emphasizes that the photodetecting functions of opsins in the skin relate to regulating cell death and proliferation. The -opsins change genetic expression based on the amount and quality (spectrum) of light detected.
Implications of Paroptic vision in the 21st Century
I think the skeptics are “more right” than the proponents. That is, the skeptics are totally right, but have some omission, and the proponents are partially right, but it’s on accident. I think many of the claimants were simple frauds but at the same time the field of study it opened up allowed enough research to be done to connect it with unrelated phenomena and provide insight. It reminds me of the 5-minute-mile conundrum, when many thought it was impossible until one person achieved it, after which it became standard. Perhaps if more performers and magicians can claim impossible feats then we can, by modes of “not cheating” find ways to awaken them anyway, often through the subtle art of modern sciences.
The heat perception is undisputed now, other than the extent of its precision. A best explanatory mechanism for paroptic vision should involve temperature sensors in the skin. As long as there is enough sensitivity, thermal effects can entirely distinguish both patterns and materials. The heat and the light perception taken together make the whole idea that this can be learned, even if haphazardly, not seem so much like science fiction.
The scientists who found melanopsin came to those discoveries from an entirely different angle than the people researching extra-retinal vision. It comes from the propagation of neurobilogy and microbiology into mapping every function of every organelle and subcellular component of the body. I haven’t found anyone bridging these worlds together, though to me the connections are obvious. I hope that here I have made those connections obvious to you too, and that you can open your mind to a little bit more of the world of “impossible abilities.”
Sources
I encountered so many sources cited in the various documents, that I couldn’t locate or go through all of them, especially the experiments done in the 1960s. I have made a separate page with a complete bibliography of paroptic vision studies, newspaper articles, and books. Here is just what I’ve made exact reference to in this article:
Bókkon, István. “Phosphene phenomenon: a new concept.” BioSystems 92.2 (2008): 168-174.
Brugger, Peter, and Peter H. Weiss. “Dermo-optical perception: The non-synesthetic “palpability of colors” a comment on Larner (2006).” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17.2 (2008): 253-255.
de Assis, Leonardo Vinicius Monteiro, et al. “How does the skin sense sun light? An integrative view of light sensing molecules.” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology C: Photochemistry Reviews 47 (2021): 100403
de Assis, Leonardo Vinícius Monteiro, et al. “Loss of melanopsin (OPN4) leads to a faster cell cycle progression and growth in murine melanocytes.” Current Issues in Molecular Biology 43.3 (2021): 1436-1450.
de Lauro Castrucci, Ana Maria, Maurício S. Baptista, and Leonardo Vinicius Monteiro de Assis. “Opsins as main regulators of skin biology.” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology 15 (2023): 100186.
Duda, Mariusz, et al. “Melanopsin: From a small molecule to brain functions.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 113 (2020): 190-203.
Gardner, Martin. “Dermo-optical Perception: A Peek Down the Nose: Recent tests, offered as confirming evidence for DOP, lack sufficiently tight controls to rule out trickery.” Science 151.3711 (1966): 654-657.
Guido, Mario E., et al. “Non-visual opsins and novel photo-detectors in the vertebrate inner retina mediate light responses within the blue spectrum region.” Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology (2020): 1-25.
Jacobsen, Annie. “Phenomena: The Secret History of the US Government’s Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.” (2017): 296-311.
Jacobson, J. Zachary, B. J. Frost, and W. L. King. “A case of dermooptical perception.” Perceptual and Motor Skills 22.2 (1966): 515-520.
Kaiser, Peter K. “Nonvisual color perception: A critical review.” Color Research & Application 8.3 (1983): 137-144.
Kusumoto, Junya, et al. “OPN4 belongs to the photosensitive system of the human skin.” Genes to Cells 25.3 (2020): 215-225.
Karthikeyan, Ramanujam, Wayne IL Davies, and Lena Gunhaga. “Non-image-forming functional roles of OPN3, OPN4 and OPN5 photopigments.” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology 15 (2023): 100177.
Larner, A. J. “A possible account of synaesthesia dating from the seventeenth century.” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 15.3 (2006): 245-249.
Makous, W. L. “Cutaneous color sensitivity: Explanation and demonstration.” Psychological Review 73.4 (1966): 280
Mat, Audrey, et al. “All Light, Everywhere? Photoreceptors at Nonconventional Sites.” Physiology 39.1 (2024): 30-43.
Nickell, Joe. “Natasha.” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 1 (2005): 9.
Sua-Cespedes, Cristhian, et al. “Melanopsin (OPN4) is a novel player in skin homeostasis and attenuates UVA-induced effects.” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology 242 (2023): 112702.
Youtz, Richard P. “Response: Dermo-optical Perception.” Science 152.3725 (1966): 1108-1108.
