Not sure where to post this, but does anyone else ever "practice" being blind because you just want to give your eyes a break, but you're not tired? I want to do things, I just want my eyes closed...

I had laser surgery done on my eyes in 2016 and this is one of the things I really miss: being able to take off my glasses and see the world turn into fuzzy shapes and motion instead of fine details to concentrate on. It could be relaxing, as long as I was somewhere familiar enough to navigate.

i also do this, although it's less than i used to, since i've gotten dark-tinted glasses (think sunglasses that aren't as dark)

also, protip, they can tint your prescription glasses to make them tinted, if you're light sensitive, like i am

there have been times where i've fantasized about having a blind computer or programming set up. i've never tried, but maybe i should try with a screenreader for beehaw or something

All the time. Sometimes the visual input is all too much and my brain needs a break or all of its resources for something else and vision is too much to handle.

I do it every time I need to tell a serious story so i can make sure i dont get visually distracted

I don't need to try. When I'm too tired my optic nerve starts acting up and I can't distinguish what's in front of me.

But, because I rely much more on my hearing and sense of smell, those are the ones that I sometimes need to "cut" because I get overwhelmed

I do this and didn’t realize other people did too. I think it helps me from getting too overstimulated, especially in very crowded places.

@MadgePickles I sometimes try it but generally experience great difficulty in doing it because I either am completely exhausted or my not so great coordination ends up causing a problem.

I do this semi-regularly, partly because I have issues with eye strain after years of staring at computer/phone text 18 hours a day. I've also enjoyed sleeping in complete darkness since I was a child and don't like sudden brightness, so I got used to getting around my personal spaces without needing to see much. I don't believe that what I practice doing is anything like what a blind person actually has to deal with and I don't have any desire to be blind myself, but it's an interesting thing to do sometimes.

I recently did this in the shower. I found there were spots I was not cleaning as throughly as I should and hadn't noticed as I was always thinking about whatever shower thought. But without eye sight I had to relearn to shower a little and it allowed me to pay more attention to what I'm actually doing.

My whole life I have experimented with what losing a sense would be like and which I would rather have lost should that occur. Mostly between sight and hearing, which I recently found out that noise canceling headphones are tge greatest thing in the world. So being overly stimulated is something I never noticed, yet experienced often.

I also walk around my house sometimes, not near the stairs, with my eyes closed just to see how well my mind can keep me oriented. It usually doesn't last very long.