Also known as skin reading and dermo-optics, this quite literally means seeing images and colours through the skin. Eyeless vision is said to work best in daylight rather than in darkness.

In 1937, Life magazine ran a three-page story on a 13-year-old Californian boy named Pat Marquis, who convinced his doctor that he could see after his eyes had been taped shut. Professors and reporters who tested him later to satisfy themselves of this claim found no trickery. Rosa Kuleshova also impressed scientists in the former USSR by identifying colours and reading print with her finger tips while her eyes were covered, Time magazine printing her remarkable story in 1963.

In 1920, French psychologist Jules Romains studied the phenomenon and concluded that all skin has the capacity for eyeless sight, in particular the hands. In the early 1960s eyeless vision was extensively researched in the Soviet Union, where researchers attempted to train individuals to read colours, words and images through their skin while blindfolded.

Various theories have been put forward to explain eyeless vision. Some believe that skin readers have special unknown cells in their bodies, others suspect fraud, suggesting that when a person loses their sight, nature compensates by heightening another of the senses – usually the tactile and/or auditory sense – and it is possible with diligent practice to develop the senses to achieve extraordinary feats. Another theory suggests that electromagnetic energy and the meridian energy points on the body may be the cause.

SOURCE:

The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal: The Ultimate A-Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal – Written by Theresa Cheung – © Theresa Cheung 2006