Two Other Senses

For the past few months, I've been relying less upon visual senses and more upon the other senses, especially sound and touch, to guide me. In part because I believe I am too reliant upon vision and therefore get too frustrated when I don't see something but also because I've noticed that my vision is starting to deteriorate. I need bifocals. It happens to a lot of men around my age and I shouldn't be alarmed or feel cause for concern. Yeah, but it's happening to me.
In any case, it raised my awareness of how I have been limiting myself to visual stimulation both physically and metaphysically. I decided that I would take steps to amend that and began to do a "slow blink" (blinking takes a fraction of a second, I started taking a second or so) and taking a moment to listen.
I noticed that I had been bombarded with auditory input but had just been ignoring it. That little voice in our heads that tells us things. Hokey Smokes! I was ignoring really good advice!
I also started verbalizing questions instead of just thinking them. My coworkers think I've completely lost my faculties. But I am hearing replies and it isn't me answering my own questions.
If Life gets so busy I cannot hear the things around, I just slow blink and refocus. It's amazing what I've been missing.
I have also learned that I have a pillow with really weird textures. I use it for my legs (my bed is uneven and this helps balance my spine) but it sometimes feels like there's something else in bed with me! No, just the pillow. More than once I've jumped out of bed or thrown my pillow across the room; in the middle of the night, one does not need one's heart rate to go from 60 to 600 in a millisecond.
I still am getting visual stimuli; but, now that I'm paying more attention to auditory and tactile input, I'm getting a broader spectrum of what's out there.
It's been an interesting journey.