What should I be seeing when side breathing during freestyle/crawl?

I'm going with the advice to always have one eye in the water, what should I be seeing? I find it hard to tell given the googles prevent me from closing one eye or the other so I can't quite tell if I'm keeping one eye in? It's quite a brief moment for my brain to make sense of two different images!

I use to see the ceiling of the pool complex (way wrong I know).

Then I focused on only seeing the poolside benches, still too high.

Then on the side of the sunken pool (ie water level is a foot or so below the edge).

Now I'm getting other parts of the technique in line and speed is picking up I realise I can keep my head down even further and mostly I'm seeing the 'wave' created by my head that is forming the breathing pocket.

I can push deeper and occasionally see other swimmers under the water, but is that too deep? I find that really runs the risk of swallowing water instead of air.

submitted by /u/nfoote
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