You have it right, he had thick lenses for myopia, looks like. The edges are polished, so they have a distortion effect when lit the way they are, from above. Looks like his left eye was way more corrected than the left, as well.
Source: I'm blind as fuck and can relate to this distortion in pictures.
I'm struggling with it still because my brain says the top line is the arm but....on the right side you can see it comes out of the middle, not the top.