In the past, it has been argued that one who tries to practice the Bates method while still wearing glasses risks further ingraining the visual strain. And this does make sense. If you practice correct habits but then in effect reinforce incorrect ones, what have you taught yourself? Possibly, you've learned to counter the correct habits, which could make it harder to improve even if you later have more favorable conditions. If you do things which should release the visual strain, but it is held in place by glasses, haven't you learned to hold onto the visual strain even while basically doing the correct thing?

I realize that people wear lesser prescriptions to leave room for improvement, but even then you are most likely reinforcing the strain to some degree, especially if you need glasses for both near and distant viewing. Perhaps this is why Bates said that you must completely discard glasses if you want to recover on your own. A good teacher might counteract the bad effects of glasses, but how can you hope to do so when you're the one teaching yourself the bad lessons?

Daniel, do you mean on this forum? I haven't heard anything about practicing with glasses ingraining the strain. I have heard, however, that it is usually much more difficult to obtain relaxation with the glasses on and that any improvement, even temporary, will take take a pretty big hit because of the corrective lenses.

That said, I do think it's possible to make strain more permanent from practicing the Bates method incorrectly, but I don't think there is a direct connection to corrective lenses here. The only connection I see is that one is usually under more strain when wearing glasses, so it can become a problem if someone *thinks* they are practicing correct habits but is in fact going about them incorrectly, then what you said can happen. But if they truly are practicing correct habits, I don't think it should matter whether or not they are wearing glasses or not. I'm not saying that people should wear glasses while practicing vision habits. Rather, I'm suggesting that the very wearing of the glasses makes it harder for vision habits to be practiced correctly. Basically, I think you have the causation links a bit jumbled up, but I agree with the general idea of not wearing any corrective lenses while practicing Bates.

I speak from a bit of experience here: About a year and a half ago, I thought that effortless vision meant that I should freeze the eyes and have them not do anything. It sounds dumb now, but it made sense to me at the time. I mean, if you just keep your eyes where they are without moving them and shut off your thoughts about them, wouldn't that fix everything? As it turns out, the very act of freezing them in place is a huge strain... but I didn't know that at the time. So I went about doing that for a good week or so. At a certain point, I tested my vision with the Snellen chart and noticed that my vision had gotten noticeably worse, which rather spooked me. It turns out that I had simply traded my strains for more serious ones.

But this is where the story gets hopeful: Once I recognized that I was doing it wrong, I reverted back to my previous strained way of seeing, and within a week, I had improved my vision back to its original level. What this means then, is that when we practice correct habits, vision improvement should follow relatively quickly. And if we are practicing them incorrectly, the vision should also start to get worse relatively quickly. So it is important that we constantly pay attention to the state of our vision, so that we can tell if we are practicing habits correctly or incorrectly, and move on from there.

Pikachu, I agree with everything you wrote. Daniel, you have the ability to know or determine if what you're doing is helping or hurting your vision, without worrying so much that you are doing something wrong. Does it feel good, and can you see more clearly, or can you feel the tension and notice the blur? There are guidelines, yes, but no hard and fast rules since everyone is different, and has a different level of visual strain. In general no glasses is better for your eyes, yes, but if you're wearing under-corrected ones because you need them to function, you can still shift and look for small details all day long, although you should also be doing some glasses-free practice regularly, like with the eye chart. If your eyes feel relaxed and you can see more clearly, you are doing things right. If your eyes or face or head feel strained and the vision is blurry, you probably want to adjust your habits.

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Nancy
2012: 20/45 on average, no glasses except for night driving
2001: 2/200, -10 hard contacts with -1.75 cylinder
Vision & dreams blog: http://dreamersight.wordpress.com/
Vision & dreams website: http://dreamersight.com/

@Daniel 'I realize that people wear lesser prescriptions to leave room for improvement, but even then you are most likely reinforcing the strain to some degree, especially if you need glasses for both near and distant viewing. Perhaps this is why Bates said that you must completely discard glasses if you want to recover on your own.'

Totally agree I noticed after a few hours of wearing lower prescription glasses my sight didn't worsen that much but my mind and ability to imagine was completely lost and had to spend half an hour of imagination techniques to have the ability to picture something in my mind again. Obviously when using glasses the brain thinks that strain equals better vision which is always a dangerous blow to the mind.

I remember bates said somewhere that if one can't find a vision teacher then spent a little more time around people or a friend who can see, so you subconsciously take in some of the correct vision habits. Also much can be learnt when looking at people who can see and people with glasses, and realizing the same subtle ingredients that cause strain. And noticing the calm, vibrant and confident people who can see.

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Eyesight blog http://seeingwiththemind.wordpress.com/

To clarify, is this something that happened recently (i.e. after your great improvement)?

Yes this was very recent (around a week ago) which was the first time in over a year I had to wear glasses.

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Eyesight blog http://seeingwiththemind.wordpress.com/

Any particular reason you had to wear glasses? For a job, or driving?

yes at a new job I had to wear glasses for a while, (extremely grudgingly)

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Eyesight blog http://seeingwiththemind.wordpress.com/