I'm not sure what the heading of this thread should be, but here goes. I'm presently praying with Peter for emotional healing and have been doing so weekly for the last number of years. He presented as an average guy, but the more I got to know him, I realised he had a pretence of sorts going on. He disclosed he found it very hard to connect with people, even though he has a very understanding wife. All of life to him was a pretence for as long as he could remember, but he could pretend very well, be happy with happy people and sad when the occasion demanded it etc. He is also a very dedicated man to prayer and would often give me little gems of insights from the Lord. One thing I did notice as he opened up to me was that he had two distinctly different looks in his eyes. His right eye would be full of light and warmth and would twinkle as he spoke. His left one however would be lifeless, almost black, cold and sometimes very evil looking. If he covered his right and looked at you with his left, it would certainly scare you and you would feel the hair standing on the back of your head. He said he was told about his eyes for many years but only by people he let into his circle. And I did notice that people who were not close to him never seemed to notice even though they could be sitting very near. I thought for a while that this "look" was demonic but having prayed into it felt it was more to do with hurt. We started to pray into the hurts in his life and there were many. Peter also disclosed that when he prayed about them he would sometimes get an image ... of himself looking into a mirror, but the person in his reflection would have his back turned to him, after some weeks of prayer the image changed, everything was similar but now the mirror was split in two from top to bottom, like two mirrors joined. In the right hand one he would see himself as a healthy man, well built, well dressed etc. But in the left mirror he would see himself as a gaunt figure, clothes hanging off him, a sickly figure. He was still seeing the figures from the rear. I didn't know what to make of this so we just kept praying. As time passed he said the healthy figure seemed to command more space and the gaunt one was getting thinner and stooped and was gradually being pushed towards the left of the mirror. One day in prayer, I realised the images he was getting corresponded with his eyes and the next time we met up I looked closely into his left eye. (With his permission or he would blacken mine!) It had certainly improved, much brighter and not as scary but still more healing needed. My question... I wonder is there a medical/psychological explanation for this? I have never come across it before. I know some members here are from the medical field... And lastly I would ask your prayers for Peter PS, I almost forgot to mention that he is also finding a change coming in how he relates to people and is finding the pretence is gradually disappearing. His wife said he had an almost childish way of relating to the world but she can see this changing ever so slowly.
I'm no professional by any means but on first glance it sounds to me like he might be suffering from some form of dissociative psychological problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder
A few more thoughts about this, because I am currently doing research on psychological trauma (for other purposes, I'm not a psychologist so this is purely amateur speculation)... The mirror image he is getting is very interesting, and also that the condition of his psyche seems also to be expressed bodily in his eyes. There are theories about how early formation of the sense of the self and identity in childhood development are linked to a baby seeing his own reflection in his mother's eyes. The mirror is a metaphor for the mind itself in psychoanalysis, and the vertical split that he is seeing in the mirror (a representation of his own mind) could represent a "split" in his psyche as he attempts, through prayer, to "shake off" the negative (hurting) part of himself (which most likely has its source in some kind of childhood trauma I would imagine).
Thanks Adoremus, I was thinking along the same lines but you have put it much better than I could. It is interesting how it shows up in his eyes.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, as they say. I'm sure a psychoanalyst would have a field day on him but he is probably safer to stick with prayer, as it seems to be helping, if the images he is receiving are anything to go by. There are deep wounds no doubt, poor man. I will pray for him too.
There is a realm of doctoring called "irrideodology" this is the study of iris' s. A medical man found an eagle that suffered from a broken wing. While working on healing him over the months he noticed in the iris of the animal there was a spot. As the eagle got better the spot went away. He then started researching human iris. Not saying this is an answer but just a different approach to your question. In my younger years I did a lot of work and research with herbal remedies and it lead me into this type of holistic Medicine along with acupressure.
The name of the book is "radiology" "how the eyes reveal your health and your personality" by Dorothy Hall. for those who care to explore iris study.
I went to post something to Border collie on this thread, only to discover that he has left the forum . Sad to see him go. Border collie, just in case you are still lurking, I wanted to recommend to you a book that I am reading at the moment which I think you might find very interesting and useful in relation to your friend. It's by Sue Gerhardt and it's called Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain. You could probably find it online or in a library.
