I was released from the hospital where the surgery took place and arrived in the rehab hospital on a stretcher one day in November - about a month after the stroke. I started off my stay in the rehab facility having stormy relationships with nearly all of my therapists - a story I'll get to later.

I was in the rehab hospital for a few months. It was there that I began that long journey to recovery, and consequently first realized how the stroke had impaired my vision. In fact, I believe that I was still experiencing a loss of motor skill function, even after the surgery was successful! It felt like certain brain cells were still on their way "off line,"although no one ever told me that. It just felt that way. It is true thought that my overall level of activity increased with the change in hospitals, and therefore impairments probably became more obvious.

As I said: following the stroke I knew that I couldn't walk. Heck, I couldn't eat without missing my mouth with the fork. I had trouble manipulating my eyes to move in sync, so reading was a major problem. The old eyeballs didn't work together. While one eye would track horizontally across, like what occurs when we read, the other eye, would move out of sync. For instance: I could read across a column of words in my bible, but couldn't get my eyes to go to the first word of the next line down. Frustrating as heck!

Changing views with our sight is something we take forgranted. The act of simply turning my head to look in another direction was down right disorientating. It's a trip when that simple behavior causes dizzieness and disorientation. Equalibrium is affected. You can't focus right away. And, the dizzy affect can last for seconds longer. The passing of time - seconds even, seem much longer.

One of my therapist - with whom I developed a good rapor, had this exercise where she used a string about 10 feet in length, strung with three different color wooden beads. The beads were shaped like tiny footballs, with holes through the center, that allowed the beads to slide along the length of the string. The task for the patient was to focus on each bead in turn.

I'd be instructed to hold the string to my nose and look down the line of string at each of the first of the wooden beads. Focusing both eyes on the same bead meant forcing my eyes to look inward - the therapist called it "conversion" - which is to make the many tiny muscles in the both eyes focus inward on the bead - sort of like making your eyes cross.

Here's the problem: When I first looked at the any of the beads on the string - I saw double. My job was to cross my eyes to blend the two images into one. I would see two beads - double vision - because in my state each eye would focus on the same bead - but separately. We can all create this effect if we hold up a finger in front and close to your nose, you'll see double too. Until you "cross your eyes" to make the double image blend into one.

I'd see double anytime I tried to focus on an object. The beads could be one, two or ten feet away. I'd still see double. For therapy, I'd have to look alternately from the first bead to the second, and then to the third, each spaced about to two feet apart along the length of string, and make my eyes "converge" - or blend the double image into one.

I found this to be a great exercise - if a frustraing as heck one. It took me straight to my dizzy place too! Three years later, I still get dizzy.

Eventually, I got so I could focus on the first two beads though. With much effort I could blend the double image into one. Then, with more effort, I could focus on the second bead and blend the double image into one. But, no manner of facial contortion, squinting, or whatever seemed to make it possible to blend the double vision of the third bead - which was located down the string about six or seven feet away.

Then this little voice in my head says: "Throw the dart!" Like throwing darts!!! I think, o.k. I like to throw darts, I'll give it a shot. It seemed like as soon as I said that, the third, most distant bead litterally "slammed" into focus! No kiddin! I didn't believe it. I closed my eyes, shook my head, and tried again.

Same thing. I'm looking down the string at the double vision of the third bead....(note; this is after successfully focusing alternately on the first and second beads). Then there's the third bead - or rather two of them - looking back at me...double!!!

Then the little voice says: "Throw the darts!" Wham - the double vision of beads Slams back together again. "WoW!" I am thinking this is fantastic!

Right there, I learned a lesson about the way people - or at least I - recall information. I couldn't figure out how to manipulate my vision....but I did have perfect recall on the way inwhich I "throw darts." And in throwing darts, or rather in actualizing the behavior that was stored in my memory that was associated with dart throwing - I was able to move my eyes! The eyes moved! In sync! And all by the simple recall of a behavior - throwing darts - that I couldn't seem to conjure up by rote!

That was an epiphany! I couldn't command my eyes to focus in convergence, but just by saying: "Throw the Dart," the memory of the behavior, saved in another part of my mind, saved as a Feeling!!! Amazing!

I learned by that exercize that we store details as a "feeling" We can have a whole bunch of details that we've learned about doing a thing...but we store it as one thing. We recall that feeling as a series of movements...but we store as one feeling...! Simply amazing!

For example: If I ask you what vanilla ice cream tastes like - you will remember it as a feeling...but you'd have to find words, and details, i.e., data - to accurately decribe the taste that you felt.

Nevertheless, the feeling is recalled as "one-thing." The explanation of that one-thing involves multiple details...texture, temperature, type of taste by comparison, etc.

I stored the multiple data bits associated with dart throwing as "one thing" that recalled a set of physical behaviors - among which necessitated that my eyes move together....And they did so without my conscious command to make it happen. The details of coordinated eye movement occurred "subconsciously" by way of the indirect suggestion of throwing darts!...that's amazing!

I now believe that we store the millions of data bits in our memories, as a finite and rather small number of "feelings." I don't know how many different feelings we have...but I don't think that there are that many, and I believe we use those feelings to recall countless amounts of "data bits" that would clutter the mind if we didn't file them away so neatly.

Speaking as Sensei Alan, I teach: "People don't do that many things....People do a few things in many different ways."

Like the way just eight notes of the musical scale comprise every song we've ever heard. Like the 3 primary colors have been used to create every painting or picture that we've ever seen. All these things are remembered - as feelings! The bottom line: while we feel one thing, or taste, or experience - we recall it in many, many details. And the function of recalling occurs in a different mental place, than conscious commands recall.

The day my eyes responded to the recall of "darts" - was the day I re-learned that lesson, like never before.