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because most of us can also see, we usually don't have a reason to use it. Blind people, however, are
taught to be aware of this skill and how to use it.
There is a simple test you can take to find out if you are one of the people with the gift of shadow
vision. Just close your eyes and walk very slowly towards a wall or a closed door. (The shadow vision
will not work if you walk too fast). As you get closer to the wall or door, you should be able to sense
some kind of faint pressure on the front of your face usually concentrated on your forehead. The
pressure will get stronger as you get closer to the obstacle and finally, when you feel it is the
strongest, stop and open your eyes. Your face should be about four to six inches away from the wall.
Of course, if you don't have this kind of shadow vision, you will walk straight into whatever is in front
of you which is another good reason for walking slowly.
This sense was first discovered by individuals who worked with the blind and noticed that some blind
people seemed to be able to get around better than others because of this special sense. Even after
years of studying this strange, built-in human radar, investigators still don't know exactly how this
works or why only some people seem to have it. The only explanation they offer is that this is just one
of the many different ways man has of "seeing" without his eyes.
Even more rare than this is the ability to see by touch. Although the woman named Mary did have
some of this ability, her talent wasn't nearly as developed as that of Rosa Kuleshova, a simple Russian
peasant woman who was probably the person most gifted with this ability. Rosa lived with her family
in a mountainous area of the Soviet Union and spent much of her time working with the blind because
several members of her own family were blind.
Although she could see, Rosa herself was an expert in reading Braille with her fingertips and always
hoped to discover some miracle method of helping the blind to see again. In fact, according to two
psychic experts, Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Rosa once had a dream in which she helped
the blind to see everything through their fingertips. Then one day the dream came true, at least for her.
One day while sitting alone in her room, she picked up an ordinary book and, on an impulse, closed
her eyes and laid her hand on an open page.
To her surprise, she found she could actually feel the individual letters printed on the page. With a
little more practice she was able to read whole words, sentences, and entire pages in the book by touch
alone. After a little more experimentation, she found she could also see different colors the same way
and could even describe the contents of a photograph just by touching it.
Both excited and confused about her newly discovered ability, Rosa decided to go to her local doctor
in the hope he could explain just how it was she could see by touch. At first the doctor was convinced
Rosa's imagination had run away from her and refused to take her claims seriously; but after she
insisted that he see her, he decided to give her a test to silence her once and for all.
After blindfolding Rosa, the doctor asked her to identify the color of each slip of paper he handed her
and, later, to read by touch sentences from newspapers and magazines he had around the office. Rosa
passed both tests with flying colors and the doctor was convinced.
In time, her reputation spread to Moscow where some of the best psychic experts in Russia invited
Rosa to come and display her talents. Even the most skeptical of these experts were convinced by her
dazzling display of fingertip vision while her eyes were covered. They blindfolded her and held their
hands over her eyes as they tested her, but nothing seemed to affect her ability to read and see with
her hands almost as well as with her eyes. Her hands were so sensitive, she could read the page of a
book or identify a piece of colored cloth covered with glass. She could even tell what color light was
being shone on her hand. The scientists were ecstatic.
Even more people heard about Rosa, and before long she had become a big celebrity in Moscow. She
began performing in theaters to sold-out houses, and she was famous throughout the country.
Unfortunately, Rosa's fame began to go to her head and before long she began making claims that she
was able to perform feats that were impossible even for her. She said, for example, that she could read
a page of print covered by a tall pile of books just by touching the top of the pile. She had to cheat to
perform tricks like this and finally one night she was caught.
The shame was more than she could stand. Rosa went crazy and had to be confined in a mental
hospital. Just as mysteriously as they appeared, her marvelous gifts disappeared, and Rosa, the star of
psychics in Russia, became a broken and disgraced woman.
Scientists both here and in Russia who had the opportunity to study Rosa were convinced that her
talents were genuine and that it was possible for some people to learn them. Among the things that
have been learned about dermavision is that children are better at learning it than adults; that even
though a person may be blind or blindfolded, someone using dermavision still needs plenty of light to
see with his fingertips; and finally, people who have suffered some kind of damage to their brain's
vision center cannot learn dermavision.
People who have this skill or learn it report they can guess colors because each has a certain
temperature to the touch. Red, for example, always feels hot. Yellow and orange are warm to the
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