As I was getting ready the other day, I was inserting my contacts into my eyes. Normally I have a routine- right eye first, followed by the left eye. To help me remember the specific lens, I store the contacts in a container that has an "r" on the green cap for the right contact and a blank white cap for the left one.

So that morning I dutifully put in my right contact and then the left contact. A little while later as I was preparing to brush my teeth I looked down into the sink and saw a contact there. The question became which eye is missing a contact? I couldn't tell by looking at the contact nor could I tell by my vision. I peered intently into the mirror to see if I could see the circular edge a contact over my reflected iris. Nope. I squeezed one eye shut and then the other to see if my poor eyesight might give me a clue as to which was missing correction. No help there.

So I put the contact into the left eye. I repeated the squeezing of one eye then the next technique to see if my eyesight improved. It did not. But my eyesight wasn't that bad either. It seemed as if I were seeing things okay. Yet the more I thought about my eyes I thought, perhaps it was my right one that fell out? So I proceeded to take the contact out of my left eye and discovered that I had put both contacts in the same eye! And I didn't even notice that much difference in my sight! Gee whiz, talk about panic and stupidity.

Well, eventually I figured it out and so far seem to be seeing okay.

But it had me thinking. In this instance, I know the cause of my contact swap. I had trouble with my contacts because I was extremely tired. I had had only a couple of hours sleep that night after a proceeding twenty-hour day. My eyes were not wanting to open much less have a contact in them. I couldn't see well but I also couldn't tell that I couldn't see well. I couldn't even tell that there was any difference in my vision.

I wonder how much of what the world perceives is due to the simple fact that we are tired. Added to that, are we even aware that our perception has been compromised?

We all can tell stories on ourselves when we hadn't had enough sleep and things that we normally wouldn't do or things that normally wouldn't bother us, become our mode of action and thinking. We are more touchy, more sensitive (not in a good way), more volatile, more angry, or more depressed. We experience a whole host of negative emotions all because we didn't get enough sleep. In addition we can also go down the rabbit hole of a host of physical ailments due to lack of sleep.

How many relationships have suffered due to lack of sleep? How many misunderstandings? How many times we wonder, how did this lost relationship happen? I didn't do anything we tell ourselves. We become myopic to our own contribution because our physical tiredness distorts the reality.

What about you? How is your sleeping? Do you get enough each night to stay refreshed? Have you ever done something silly due to being tired? If you are experiencing difficulties- e.g. trouble getting along with others, irritable, forgetting things, repeating yourself, upset stomach and intestines, overeating, not eating- perhaps it is time to stop and assess your sleeping habits.

If not, you might find yourself with double vision.