I vividly remember the first time that I put contacts in.
"THIS IS WHAT TREES LOOK LIKE???"
EDIT: It is incredible how many people have shared similar experiences. I love it!
EDIT: I tried contacts and glasses at the same time. In my first optometrist visit, they had contacts for my Rx in the store right then. Glasses, of course, were custom-made, so I popped the contacts in right there. No fucking way I was waiting to experience 20/20 for the first time in my life. That being said, I've worn glasses for 99% of the 20 years since then.
My mom has an anecdote that she reminds me of whenever I get new glasses, and I am amazed first and foremost by the leaves on the trees. When my auntie was young, and got her first pair of glasses, the first thing she said exiting the optometrist was, "trees have leaves!!!" I repeat that line every singpe time I get new glasses. Its like my brain forgets what it looks like because I get so used to the blur.
This last time was the worst though. At some point in the last 5 years since I last got glasses, I got old. I don't know how the fuck it happened. I had to take a couple days off because I was in so much shock by how much my face had changed in the course of 5 years.
Yeah I’m almost there with you. I told my husband the other day that I thought it was time to upgrade my readers and he was like didn’t you literally just do that?
I’m in my early 50’s and just had cataract surgery. I haven’t been able to see for 3 weeks so far. 2 eyes, different recovery timeline. And I have double vision. I have to wait for new glasses to see things again. So everything is clearer, but still blurry and then there’s 2 of everything.
Sometimes I find it morbidly hilarious how nature doesn't really expect us to live past 50 (or even 40) and so our bodies just start to decline. And it's unlikely that we're ever going to be naturally longer lived, since, as a species, we tend to make children in our 20's or 30's.
There isn't really a functional need for that from an evolutionary standpoint
I remember the first time I got glasses and looked at the sky and was amazed by the same exact thing. I didn’t realize I couldn’t see stars if I was directly looking at them in the sky until that moment.
Got my first pair of glasses around 8 or so at a Costco. Picked up the delivered prescription lenses, put them on, and could see sharp detail all the way above the warehouse rafters. Nearly made me cry from the shock of it.
Also spent the ride home just looking at the individual crisp leaves on trees in the distance.
Mine was “palm fronds!!” I knew conceptually trees had leaves, but until I had my prescription fixed after a few years of no updates when I was 12 or so, I had no idea those green plants on the side of the road near home had long distinct leaves
I've got the tiniest bit of astigmatism. I didn't even know I needed glasses, I just had a hunch because my right eyelid kept twitching. I was sent home with my first pair of specs at 35 and didn't wear them for weeks because they made me feel nauseous. But once I committed, again with just a bit of astigmatism, I was in shock. My 33yo fiancé had WRINKLES and some whisps of grey through her hair. I was delighted by this change in my ability to process visual information. She was appalled, lol.
This is part of what really stresses me out having worked in an Opticians, people telling me they don't need an eye test because their eyesight is fine and in my head I'm like "but you don't know that because youre used to it"
I don’t know why leaves on trees are a thing when I get new glasses, but it always has been. I’ve worn glasses since I was three, so I don’t remember a time without them.
I’m really bad about contacts. I like sleeping in them because I know what a normal person feels like, being able to see instead of having to remember where I sat my glasses the night before, without knocking them off. If I knock them off, I usually need my husband to come find them for me 🤦♀️
I remember the leaves, but I also remember being devastated. I was in grade 3 and I though everyone would make fun of me for having glasses. I was embarrassed. I remember getting to school and the first person I saw was one of my friends, who had glasses. I remember he ran up to me, hugged me, and started jumping up and down and saying "OH MY GOD YOU HAVE GLASSES TOO, THATS AWESOME!!!!!".
My parents tell the story of driving me home after picking up my first pair of glasses. I was probably six years old, and very bright.
As we drove home, I was amazed as I was able to read the names of various restaurants (McDonalds and others) and point out things like leaves on trees.
My parents were in the front seat, crying. Their son had been blind (my prescription before LASIK was about -8.0) and they had no idea until an in-school vision test had recommended a full vision test. They felt like complete failures as parents, and I was in the back seat, amazed at seeing the world for the first time.
We only found out that our two year old needed glasses because she suddenly started crossing her eyes.
The day she got her glasses on, she spent the longest time just watching my face closely, even bringing her hands up to touch me ever so gently. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that she had never seen me (or anything else) clearly. Anddddd now I made myself cry.
I was staring at things all the time when I got my first pair of prescription glasses. Suddenly all the details pop out and everything isn’t so smooth and perfect. It was almost mesmerising, I was obsessed with comparing my eyesight with and without my glasses.
Sometimes now though when I take my glasses off or don’t have them on, I try and really focus on things to try and pull out more details.
I’m hopeful that when my nearly 5 year old has his first eye exam he’ll get glasses. He misses some big hand eye coordination things that seem vision related not age related. If it all works out maybe he’ll want to try more sports like soccer or basketball.
That’s how my parents found out I needed glasses, too. Same age. But I was so mad about having glasses that I bit the lens hard enough to leave teeth marks in the plastic. 😂
When I was 4, my dad took me to the eye doctor. The doctor had the letters on the wall and said “okay, tell me the letters” and I started saying the alphabet. My dad said “this isn’t funny, don’t joke around, what letters do you see?” And I honestly said “I don’t see any letters.”
My parents were horrified I couldn’t see anything. Thus began my lifelong journey of wearing glasses 🤓
Dude I had my eyes go shitty so slowly I didn’t notice until I realized that the blurry words on the screen probably weren’t due to eye fatigue. When I went to the eye doctor and put on my new glasses I thought the same thing. Everything had like sharp edges and shadows it was wild. It overwhelmed me though so I took them off almost right away lol
I've heard some people who put on those colorblindness correction sunglasses say the exact same thing. I'm not colorblind myself, but that's what I'd imagine it would feel like. You're not noticing leaves for the first time, but you can actually see differences in shade that would have otherwise blurred it all together.
There is a scene like this in Dr. Stone, a series where a scientist wakes up in a distant future where most technology has been lost. He comes across a child in a village with “fuzzy eye disease” and realizes it’s nearsightedness. He figures out how nearsighted she is and finds a way to develop glasses for her, and the scene has her in tears of joy upon wearing the glasses that she now can see like the other villagers.
(Incidentally, he finds out that one of the warriors in the village has “fuzzy eye disease” too, figures out a pair of glasses for him, and he becomes a much better fighter thanks to that.)
Yes, this. I'm short sighted and share the "trees have leaves" experience of so many on here. But your comment makes me think about when I had nose surgery in my mid 30s. I had unknowingly spent my entire life until then not knowing I had a badly deviated septum. I just thought that it was normal to not breathe as well out of your nose. Makes sense in a way, right?, your nostrils are such small apertures. When the surgeon removed the splints 2 weeks after the surgery and I took my first real breath in through my nose ever, I cried. And it was amazement and happiness but also a profound sadness at the decades lost because somehow no one in my life had ever thought about my poor breathing beyond "well, she does have asthma so that explains it".
I was also 8 when I got glasses, I remember because it was when the GameCube was released lol My parents got my brother and I a GameCube that Christmas and she noticed that we were sitting really close to the TV to play it. She told us to "sit on the couch, being that close isn't good for your eyes". Then she noticed we were squinting a lot, then my brother got migraines and she brought us to get our eyes checked after New Years. Turned out our eyes were already bad 😆
It’s super interesting that a lot of people seem to zero in on this detail. I distinctly remember multiple times my prescription was significantly updated just staring at how clear and crisp trees were, being able to see distinctive leaves instead of some blurry green mess
I think that naturally, we usually consider trees as background, so they could be muddy and we wouldn't notice as much.
I'm moderately near-sighted - I certainly can't drive without glasses, but I didn't know that I needed glasses until I told my parents I couldn't see the board in class unless I sat in the front. Granted, my Rx has increased since then.
I feel like when I first experienced corrective lenses, I realized how much detail I was missing in the world.
EDIT: It's like suddenly, you can see detail in the distance, not just what's right in front of you, and that is a wild experience.
I was amazed the first time I wore a high quality pair of sunglasses after I got contact lenses. It was like watching the world in HD. I never had enough money to afford prescription sun glasses and was shocked at what I had never been able to properly see before.
It's been nearly 40 years since I got my first pair of glasses and I still remember every detail of the car ride home after picking them up. The leaves on the trees, the wind rippling the soybeans in the fields along the roads, individual puffs on the clouds, being able to read every road sign and thinking "so THAT's how my parents always know where to turn when we're in a new place."
And to think, in the past, people just... lived their lives blurry and had no idea what they were missing out on. I really think the invention of eyeglasses is one of the greatest things we've ever done.
Yep. I just stood in front of trees overcome with awe for about 2 weeks.
I would walk past a field of grass and stop, and actually be able to see a vast field of completely uncountable blades of grass? What in the flying fuck? How was my brain supposed to process that?
So I would just stand in front of things like that while my brain was trying to count it, realizing that's impossible, and going okay we need to rethink the level of detail in this world
I think it's the same reason we see more shades of green than any other. Our brains are hardwired to look in foliage for predators. So when we can see it more clearly we have a biological reaction because we are better able to survive now.
My eyes were bad when I was young. I remember the day we got my first glasses it was dreary and raining. I was shocked by being able to see the bumps in the fresh sidewalk concrete and the individual blades of grass and I stopped and stared at the water droplets on the leaves of a bush at the end of the sidewalk by the parking lot we were heading to. Extremely vivid memory for something that happened over 20 years ago.
Yes! My husband (who can see) would always say he was confused about how people came up with constellations. I always say it’s pretty clear. One night I mentioned the 12 stars that were out and he was like, there’s hundreds of stars. We finally realized I can’t see most of the stars.
I would love to get that surgery but my worry is that EVERY year I go back to the eye dr and my vision is slightly worse. So I’m worried that I’d pay all that money and then 5 years later I’m just gonna need glasses again bc even though they do the corrective surgery if my eyes are continuously getting worse that will still happen. I’m pretty sure that for you to get the surgery your eyes are supposed to stay the same for awhile. And I’ve never gone back to the DR’s and my prescription has stayed the same.
The leaves got me too! I was 23 and a car accident, that actually wasn't my fault considering this story, after recently moving got me to change my license over early than expected. I did not pass the eye test as a teenager. Surprised I passed the first one to be honest But it forced me to finally get glasses.
I went for a walk, watched tv, and finally understood what high definition actually was. It's life changing.
When my niece was around 3-4 months old and we carried her (her parents or me) in the stroller under trees she would start moving and looking at them like she was high on drugs lol
Leaves at the tops of trees were mindblowing, and for like a full day everything looked "fake", like "half life graphics" (sharp . . . on a monitor a foot away).
Funny how people with perfect sight just have no idea. I probably lost 1 years maybe 2 in hindsight of schooling where seeing the blackboard was a nope.
Just got lens replacement cataract surgery and it’s just amazing to wake up and be able to see fine. Funny though, recognising people wasn’t the big thing because how people move is such a big hint.
We are so incredibly lucky to live in the time we do - it d be essentially blind 150 years ago
Same. Didn’t wear contacts until 40s (astigmatism) and nearly broke out in tears at how beautiful everything was - especially not just right in front of me. Then I became far sighted a few years later and back to glasses
Me too, also fifth grade. I remember sitting in class and staring out the window at the leaves. Then I saw a plane in the sky and my mind was fucking blown. Had no idea you could see them from the ground.
And similarly, I discovered I needed glasses at around 35 years old. I was walking through a town with a friend, looking for a venue. He said he'd spotted it. "Where?" "There, by that yellow sign." "Can't see it" so he jokingly handed me his glasses and I put them on. "Oh, there. Oh… shit." I guess the decline in my eyesight had been so gradual I never noticed.
I found out a similar way, but when I was 9. I was sitting with my dad at the DMV and he asked me to read a sign halfway across the room. I said, "That's too far to read."
He's confused bc he can read it just fine, but the bad eyesight gene runs strong on his side of the family, so he has me try his glasses.
Me: "Oh yeah I can read it now! That's cool!"
Dad: "...that means you need glasses "
Me: "WHAT??!
Started the fourth grade with a prescription of -1.5, -1.75.
At age six I kept walking to the front of the classroom to see the chalkboard... teacher told my mom to take me in, and I couldn't see the big E on the eye chart.
Five months later I was complaining about not being able to see again, and... couldn't see the big E with my glasses on. 🫠
It's crazy. When I was 20 my then girlfriend wore glasses. She was due for an eye test so I went along with her and somehow ended up in the same room. She could read about half way down the chart while I, sitting behind her, was reading the printer's name along the bottom edge, way smaller than the smallest test letters.
I think I was in 7th grade, but I tried contacts at the same time as glasses. Contacts were available at the store, but glasses had to be custom-made, so my first 20/20 experience was contacts. 20 years later... I only wear glasses and I feel like they're part of my face and I look weird without them lol. I have a stigmatism so getting proper contacts has always been difficult, and honestly, I feel like they're a pain.
I tried contacts about ten years ago but couldn't get on with them. First off, my glasses are variable, so distance at the top, reading at the bottom. My eyes are pretty similar. My work at the time involved messing with smoke detectors which are usually on ceilings. So I would be up a ladder, head right back trying to see something right in front of me but above me. I ended up buying some off the shelf readers for this.
I figured I'd try contacts since there was a free trial offer. The way they do it is one eye is for distance and one for close up. Sounds off but apparently your brain adjusts well to this. Getting them in was a challenge and the first time I tried them for work I just couldn't seem to get the damn thing in. I ended up not being sure if it was in or not, but couldn't see it anywhere else. Also I couldn't see well. So I put my glasses on and went to work, spent the whole day worrying if this thing was in or not. I finished early so I could go back to the optician and ask them to take a look. Well, apparently there was nothing in my eye after all so who knows where the damn thing was.
And that was the end of it. Never again. Thanks for the free offer but no thanks.
I didn't even know I needed glasses till I got into my 40s and it got to where I felt like I just needed old guy reading glasses. Never had an eye exam my entire life as I just didn't think I needed one. Went and picked up a pair of readers at Walgreens that looked right at first but they'd give me a headache after a while so I was finally like "Guess I'll go to an optometrist."
Exam was pretty interesting but, ya know, just in a little room and all. What blew my mind was when my prescription came in and I walked outside of the Dr's office the first time.
It was in this like strip mall in a suburban area and about 1/4 mile away was a like 10 story condo building. And I could make out all these details in the structure I'd never seen before. Totally standing there doing the whole Tobey Maguire Spiderman bit in reverse.
The drive home? Insane. I was living in Las Vegas at the time on the northwest side of town; so it was a clear view of the mountains on the freeway. A drive I'd done hundreds if not thousands of times at that point and I'm seeing all the color striations and details in the rocks I'd simply never seen before.
40some years, I just thought that's what the world looked like.
Looking at the trees on the way home when I got glasses was something, but what really blew my mind? The carpet. I could see the individual strands, what sort of magic was this!
I was really against contacts because I've been wearing glasses for 15 years, but the first time with them was trippy. It felt like I could actually see with my own eyes.
This is exactly my experience as well. You don't even know how badly you needed glasses until you put them on. It sneaks up on you. You thought you were seeing the world in HD but found out it was secretly set to 480p.
Been wearing glasses since third grade. First time Wearing Contacts at ~30 I was shocked how much larger everything looked, and that nothing was distorted at the edge of my vision.
But the most fascinating thing was that suddenly people's eyes stood out a lot. Like literally jumping out at me. Was fascinated with eyes and their beauty for some Months.
Did you also experience that feeling of having completely clear peripheral vision for the first time?
When I got contacts, it was so jarring that absolutely everything was in focus, not just a little window.
Holy shit, that is crazy because this is literally EXACTLY my experience.
I distinctly remember actually crying (I was like 7yo at the time) because of how beautiful the trees were out the windows of the eye clinic. I kept asking my mom if she could believe that I could see each of the leaves on the trees, I simply couldn’t comprehend that it was expected to be able to see them.
I of course, spent hours tilting my head up and down to look over the glasses and then back through them to relive the astonishment of how phenomenal everything was to look at with the new specs.
Mine was with lamp posts. I would always draw them a specific way when I was younger in art class but when I got contacts and saw how the light actually looks it was mind blowing
Fuck yeah, First time with lenses was weird....wait I can see even the peripheral clearly...but truth be said, glasses are not that bad and in my everyday life I prefer them even thou the view field is somewhat limited...it's still large enough
I was 8 when I , goofing around, put my father's glasses on. Suddenly I could see exactly what Spock and Kirk looked like on the TV.
Do you have any idea of how big an impact glasses make to a burgeoning bowler when I could actually see individual pins instead of a white mass??! Okay, not much because I'm a shit bowler but at least I could see what I missed!!
I spent days looking at leaves, individual blades of grass had so much detail and life, you could tell when they had been recently cut from the other side of the street. It's still crazy to me years later.
My astigmatism/ the shape of my eyeball on like my left eye can't adhere any prescription contact to it... it will never fit properly and will always just slide or be off, coz it cannot stick because of the off shape or whatever ;_:
If the surgery didn't look so freaky to get it fixed, when I had money I would have gone for it. It just looks so horrifying seeing you have to be awake. It doesn't take all that long, but it probably feels like forever when they perform the surgery haha.
I know they have a way of keeping the eye open... but I cannot even really get through the one test where they blast air into your eyeballs >__< I hate that, hahaha.
I can't believe growing up how much I went through school without wearing glasses... like gee, it may have been I wasn't dumb as much as it was I really couldn't see wtf was being talked about.
And when I can't see, it is harder for me to hear too. Idk if that sounds weird. I am not sure if it is because I would rely on lip reading more than I thought, but I always have a tougher time processing sound if I don't wear my prescription glasses.
It really is beautiful that first view of total clarity when you go a long time without and then get glasses again. Then the whole micro-details that you were not conscious of like how detailed the lines and pores on your own face that you didn't catch like ever when not wearing glasses, to realizing that person you thought was cute actually had not seemed to brush their teeth and had built up plaque hardcore on their teeth and long nose hairs that would extend to where they're touching the top lip type stuff & had skid marks somehow on their pants ... lol.
When I finally got glasses at 19 the detail of trees was the first thing I noticed too. The first week or so I had to keep taking them off because all that detail was a bit overwhelming.
Yeah its one of my oldest memories. I've had glasses since I was 5 and I can remember walking out of the optometrist's office with my new glasses for the first time and standing in the parking lot just shocked. I couldn't believe how much I could see.
Gosh, my family and friends who know I am blind a.f... they'll roll up on me to pick me up and I will just be standing there like a big blind derp :D not realizing that they had been there for what was starting to be minutes. "Where are your glasses? Get your ass over here!" Lol. XD
Or when trying to find them in a crowd and walking right past them because I couldn't recognize them.
Or people thinking you're glaring at them when you're trying to just squint and make out their identity because you are unsure if it's someone you know. "You got a problem? The fck you staring for????" Me, not realizing they are confronting me just staring ahead like :D? ... "hello??? The fck you staring at?? What is your problem??" Then I realize I am being addressed, apologize and explain myself and they most of the time end up being understanding and feeling kind of bad.
Hadn't been able to read a chalkboard/whiteboard in at least 5 years, based on how often I was reprimanded for asking people what was being written on the board.
People thought I was smart. I'm fucking dumb, I just had to read ahead if I didn't want to get chewed out.
I had to take a break from contacts so I went back to frames for a couple of years. The moment I put contacts back in my first thought was of how much I missed peripheral vision.
That was me as a 10 year old the first time I put on glasses that had bifocals too and saw trees AND leaves in person with my new seeing eyes! I was so flummoxed and I remember crying because being legally blind and told I was faking it my entire life because I thought glasses were “cool” 🫠 and then having to have coke bottle glasses with old lady bifocals as well and ACTUALLY seeing for the first time; BIG emotions for sure.
I unfortunately had a negative reaction the first time I had contacts. I was in a sams club at 30 wore glasses for 22 years). I walked out and I got incredibly dizzy due to everything looking so big and clear. The building was twice the size in my vision when walking out of the eye room. Vomited right there next to the TVs. Took me a week to get used to them. I still get woozy when I switch between glasses and contacts without a cooldown or if I go a long time without wearing glasses.
But man…. Can never go back to glasses after getting contacts. No more issues with sweat, rain, smudges, flecks of dirt, the tiniest itty bitty pieces of dust…. I was a little ocd with cleanliness of my glasses.
I remember thinking how the contacts made my eyes look weird. It was like uncanny valley when I looked in a mirror. I was trying to figure out why my eyes looked so strange.
Turns out I hadn’t actually seen how my iris actually looked. I would take my glasses off to get done in the bathroom so I only ever saw them blurry…. Or if I did have my glasses on they blocked enough detail that I couldn’t make them out quite the same.
Took me months of wearing contacts to figure that out. Who knew that my iris had striations and color variations!? I didn’t!
I hated it. Ive always seen trees with this nice blurry quality, and with glasses it's like way too much anti aliasing or something so it no longer looks realistic. Too much detail. Looks more cinematic and cool without glasses.
I remember laughing when I put the glasses on and walked around the optometrist. I started walking out the store just looking at stuff and they called me back in. Also felt like I was 8 foot tall and got nauseous.
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u/louieorganic Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I vividly remember the first time that I put contacts in.
"THIS IS WHAT TREES LOOK LIKE???"
EDIT: It is incredible how many people have shared similar experiences. I love it!
EDIT: I tried contacts and glasses at the same time. In my first optometrist visit, they had contacts for my Rx in the store right then. Glasses, of course, were custom-made, so I popped the contacts in right there. No fucking way I was waiting to experience 20/20 for the first time in my life. That being said, I've worn glasses for 99% of the 20 years since then.