"Looking at the past" is mainly to grasp all kinds of contents through the eyes. So once the eyes are out of sight, "seeing the past" loses its meaning.

Yasuri Nanami in The Story of the Knife temporarily invalidates "seeing the past" because he can't see anything at the moment when the candle goes out, giving Yasuri Shichika a chance to be pulled out by a bad knife until he is killed by his brother.