My client is 37 years old and, as part of her visual processing issues has had to live with vivid ‘after images’. Once she has looked at an object, she sees patterns and ‘pinwheels of light’ when she looks away - even if she shuts her eyes.
As well as suffering from 'after images' she is extremely light sensitive and had a peculiar request for me. Before the tinting session she went into our restrooms which are painted white, are brightly lit and have a large mirror along one wall – she said that this was the worst environment for her and if we could find a color that helped her there she could manage anywhere (including the brightly lit library where she has to have regular meetings).
As we layered the colors during the session (in order to block particular wavelengths of light that she was sensitive to) she started to explain how the colors helped her with various aspects of her visual processing difficulty. On looking out of the window at the clouds she said they no longer ‘moved in spirals’. She also found it much easier to look at one object and then another - the after images were no longer there and her eyes didn’t hurt. When looking at a densely packed page of text with / without the lenses she remarked ‘It’s like switching from patterns to words’. The color also ‘took all the glare away’ from a computer screen set at full brightness. She was excited to test the final color combination by going into our restrooms once more. This time she said it was like the lighting had been ‘toned down’ and the mirror which was so ‘harsh’ before was ‘nice’ and she could look at herself in it.
Sometimes I do wonder what my colleagues think about me when I am trying to replicate lighting environments for my clients….! However, it’s important to get a color combination that allows the client to live their life stress free with a sense of calm and well-being.
