Focus On v. Pay Attention To

I sent the following question to a doctor of ophthalmology:

"My name is Danny Smitherman, and I have been very interested in the phenomenology of perception for a long time, both as an actual practice and as a topic of study. I am contacting you because I have a question that is very difficult for me to succinctly put into words, especially because I'm not a scientist nor do I have any training in optics nor grasp of any such scientific vocabulary. I found the abstract of your paper "A focus on the imaging of the retina", and taking a stab in the dark, am contacting you for help.

My question is: What is the difference between focusing on an object, on the one hand, and simply focusing the eyes directly and consciously, without a focal point? For instance, when I'm driving a car and looking ahead, I can focus directly on a car ahead of me, or the stop light further up, or the pedestrian about to cross the street on my left. But can I focus my eyes, instead, irrespective of any object?

My initial empirical "tests" show that I can in fact focus my eyes that way, and it feels much like crossing my eyes, but at any 'distance' I want, though without focusing directly on a specific object. Rather, my eyes are focused to any arbitrary plane in front of me.

When I have succeeded, even for brief moments, to focus my eyes this way, the appearance of the visual field changes subtly but profoundly. At this point in my thinking, I've distinguished between 'focusing on' and 'paying attention to', because when my eyes aren't focused on a specific object, I can then 'pay attention' to any area of the visual field without moving my eyes.

If I am making any sense to you, can you tell me if this is a real - repeatable, learnable - skill? And does it make a difference in how a person then 'moves' through the space of such a visual field?

If I get a reply, I'll report back. If I don't, I'll try contacting someone else who may be able to answer my questions, or tell me that I'm not making any sense."

Until then: Look behind you!