Many people feel astigmatism is a bad, progressive disease. Actually astigmatism is caused when light focuses in two points in the back of the eye because the eye is not in the shape of a sphere. An eye with astigmatism has often been described to be in the shape of an egg or football, to some degree this is true, though an astigmatic eye is not exaggerated to that degree. Most people have some astigmatism. Visually, a person with uncorrected astigmatism will often see a faint shadow on letters or objects.
Emmetopia is when an image focuses on the retina. A person that is emmetropic has uncorrected “normal vision”.