Forty-Six - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 71

@felicity_aston Yesterday was the first day I didn't burst into
tears at any point. Must mean I'm getting used to this finally?
Imagine lying in the sun on a summer's day looking up at an
unobscured view of a cloudless sky. Staring up into the blue,
nothing is visible except a single uniform colour. There is no
structure to focus on, no variation in shade or texture, no
sense of distance, dimension or scale. And yet, in time, barely
perceptible shapes seem to appear, sometimes as constantly
shifting patterns of light and dark. Eventually, it seems, the sky
is not uniform after all but filled with forms that are almost
familiar yet hover just beyond recognition. Scientists call this
a Ganzfeld, a homogeneous visual field, and our reaction to
it highlights the inability of our brains to accept the concept
of 'nothing'. Normally the brain harvests the visual stimulus
around us and converts it into what we 'see'. When that data