clarence-adams

After a lot of experimentation and research I think I've figured out that I have a lazy left eye. Doctors said I had one when I was a kid and that I would grow out of it. I seemingly grew out of it with no additional treatment. After more research a lazy eye isn't just an eye that drifts, it's an eye that the brain doesn't want to use. Long story short, binocular vision is tough for me even with both eyes wide open because my brain only wants input from the right eye so I'm VERY right eye dominant. I can do it but it takes way more effort than most people. As an example I asked my brother in law to look at an occluded red dot for the first time and it immediately worked for him. With practice it's becoming a lot easier to do and I can use an occluded dot with little effort after months of practice. It's definitely helped me be more aware of my vision, if I'm using both of my eyes, and what I'm focusing on. I plan on getting an eye exam for the first time in probably 20 years and I'll try and remember to update this thread with the results in case anyone else has the same issue as me.

I finally had a breakthrough with the occluded dot! Just because you're shooting with both eyes open it doesn't mean you're using both eyes. Even with both eyes open I was basically only using my right eye and focusing hardcore through it while ignored my left. Now that I'm consciously using both eyes equally when aiming, it's like I can see right through the tape occluding my dot. I found this out when I was watching TV one day. I noticed my vision was relaxed and I was using both my eyes equally on the TV, so I outstretched my arm and put my thumb out like I was giving the TV a thumbs up and I had a perfect shadow of my thumb overlayed on the spot I was looking at on the TV.

I've honestly found this to be the biggest improvement for me while cross training with a dot and irons. Because of the unforgiving dot, I actually know what a good trigger press feels like now whereas with irons even sloppy trigger presses looked good enough to me to hit the target, even though the same trigger press with a dot likely would have been enough to pull the dot off target. When I switch back to irons I can now feel whether or not I did a clean trigger press even though I'm not getting as much feedback as when I use a dot.

There is some great info here, from what I can glean from everyone's responses it sounds like I AM still target focused since I'm focusing on the target through the lens and I'm not following the dot during transitions. When the dot is occluded I can overlay the dot over the target on demand now and use "binocular vision" but it still takes a lot of effort on my part and my eyes get tired quickly. Instead of target focused it feels like my vision is totally unfocused just to get it to work. The next time I can make it to the range I might experiment with the dot occluded anyways just to see if I can use it successfully. Who knows, maybe I'll have faster transitions even though it "feels" worse in dryfire.

That's kind of what I figured. Just weird to hear about everyone occluding their red dot. Maybe I'm just overthinking it and occluding just doesn't work with my eyes. I'll mess around with occluding the dot some more and if I find out I'm doing something stupid I'll update this thread in case someone else runs into the same "problem".

I thought I was target focused when shooting irons because my target was clear and my irons were fuzzy. Now that I'm dipping into red dots it's a little harder to tell if I'm target focused since the dot is never fuzzy. I've heard that occluding your red dot is the best way to train yourself to be target focused with a red dot. My problem is I can't make myself use binocular vision without basically unfocusing my eyes much less focus on the target. I have a wider field of view due to both eyes being open but I don't see the occluded dot overlayed over the target. I'm either using my right eye, or my left eye, but never both. I have a slightly lazy left eye and when I first started shooting I had to wink it while I drew the gun so that I was using my right eye when shooting otherwise it was a 50/50 shot on whether I was left eye or right eye dominant so maybe that has something to do with it? Has anyone else ran into this issue? Am I still target focused even though I'm looking right through the glass and not focusing on the dot?