Paroptic

These five series of experiments confirmed him in his opinion that there is a "paroptic" perception which is sui generis, and he decided to examine this in greater detail rather than establish further instances of its existence.

The paroptic vision—that of seeing with the fingertips—could be a bridge between physical and psychic vision.

Experiments with paroptic vision were carried out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the scientists Cesare Lombroso and Jules Romains, with startling results. (See Colin Wilson's Poltergeist [1981] and Afterlife [1987] for an account of Lombroso's work.)

In the Farbenlehre Goethe had classified color phenomena into the subjective physiological colors, the objective chemical colors, and the subjective-objective phsyical colors. he identified entoptics as subjective-objective, to be added to his earlier discussion of dioptric, catoptric, paroptic, and epoptic.

According to Gorsky, a new mucous membrane would be photosensitive, restoring the body’s evolutionarily forfeited ability to see with its entire surface. Citing the experience of French writer Jules Romains, Gorsky writes of the possibility of paroptic vision, meaning that thousands of tiny eyes would open all over the human body, while ordinary optical vision would atrophy due to the paucity of its powers.

Most of the case studies on this episode, while unusual, are all still in the realm of possibility. But towards the end, when the scientists are exploring "paroptic sight" that refers to people 'seeing' color by touching them with their fingers that you start wondering about the nature of the reality we perceive.