I'm just going to throw this out there and see what you think. As I have began to see better I find myself judging what I see. I have a feeling this might just be an intermittant stage, and that with better eyesight you don't really have time to think and judge what you see, instead the judgement takes place all on its own - something I remember Robert Lichtman said on his website. Perhaps attempting to make a personal judgement on anything visual is a strain as well?

Perhaps the judgement is linked to staring, which in turn might be linked to over-thinking - or trying to concentrate.

Any thoughts? (if this at all made sense)
Thanks.

_________________
'You may force a few facts into a child's mind but you cannot make it learn anything.'
'A theory is only a guess and you cannot guess or imagine the truth.' Bates.

Hi footballman
I know this habit - constantly 'checking' and comparing the actual eyesight and trying to make out improvements - very well.
Recently I found out, how bad and 'destructive' this is; at least the way I was doing it.

My wrong way of comparing was: trying to 'grasp' to whole seen picture in one look and commpare it to the (former) equivalent in my memory .

That means: comparing today's bad habit (looking at the wohe picture = staring) with yesterday's bad habit.
And it is not surprising to find not much improvement this way...

Instead of this (if you want to compare - and I find it very hard, almost impossible not to do this) one should compare, how much more the right way of looking at things has already become a new habit, comes naturally and automatically.
Since I realized this, I'm less 'fighting' against the blurr as a whole and tell myself: "This is normal, the picture can't be other than blury when my attention is focussed on a too large area; it can only 'clear up' starting from a small point."

This takes an lot of stress away, reminds me more often to practice correct seeing habits and then I really see improvements.

I agree with Nini. Just this morning I looked out the window and was surprised at how clearly I could see a car about 100 feet away, even though it's an overcast gray day, threatening rain. I caught myself, wondering why it should be a surprise that I can see well! I realized I was comparing the view to the past when I could hardly see anything beyond my own small lawn, with only about 25 feet before it reaches the road. Then I wondered with some dismay if I always do this as a habit: am I seeing better now? How about now? Yuck. How about just appreciating what I'm seeing? I need to keep practicing awareness and noticing how I'm seeing, and enjoying it!

_________________
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/

footballman, what do you mean by judging? I interpreted what you said very differently from how the others did, so some clarification might help.

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Webmaster of http://www.iblindness.org

"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things." - Benjamin Franklin

I didn't really mean judging what I see now to what I saw in the past, I meant judging something in a value sense, whether something is what I like or not. So you might have interpreted correctly Dave.

What happened..I was in the library when the vision improved enough to start making out more details like a few board notices, but the details weren't clear enough for me to see really well, just a lot more than usual. I found myself beginning to judge the things I was looking at as my attention went out to what I could see, whereas usually I am not paying this amount of attention to what I'm looking at. I imagined consciously judging people by what I could see such as whether I found them appealing to look at, so was wondering if this judgment comes from the strain or perhaps is from a habit of not using the eyes correctly, staring for instance. The level of judgment I was sending out seemed uncomfortable from my perspective, maybe that's why people say it's rude to stare.

Hope that clarifies somewhat.

_________________
'You may force a few facts into a child's mind but you cannot make it learn anything.'
'A theory is only a guess and you cannot guess or imagine the truth.' Bates.

footballman, now *I'm* confused! Do you mean judging it as a pessimum (I'm uncomfortable looking at this, so it will be blurry), or an optimum (this makes me feel good so I can relax looking at it and see it more clearly)? If so, maybe you're straining trying to turn a pessimum into an optimum? Believe me, I know how difficult this is. I took me a few years to get comfortable looking at the eye chart, and I hate to admit that sometimes I still avoid it. Noticing what I'm doing (not being in denial!) and being patient with myself allowed me to make slow progress at changing this.

_________________
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/

You can get weird sensations when something small changes in brain activity. For example, you might feel "lighter" when you have relaxed your muscles, even though you weigh the same, because of the effect on your body's nerves. So if you feel like you're being judgmental in whatever you look at when your vision improves, it could be because you aren't familiar with the brain activity of seeing better and the repercussions on your perception. So while it might seem like some aspect or interpretation of your increased mental activity like "being judgmental" is a big deal, that aspect should eventually seem to fit and be less out of place.

Glasses don't cause this so much, because they only help provide a clear image, which as only part of the process of better vision doesn't by itself fully adjust the mental process back to the way it was designed to work.

_________________
Webmaster of http://www.iblindness.org

"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things." - Benjamin Franklin