Hiya. I have had poor vision since I was ten years old. I wore glasses through school so I could see, but now I'm at work I choose not to. i found wearing them was making my vision even worse, so I go natural. I am going to dedicate myself to these relaxation methods to try to give my eyes some help!
I have some weird 'questions' that I can't find answers to on the internet.
I do a long fitness work out every few days and I notice after the running my vision is much improved. I can see people's faces and features (eyes etc) from pretty far off. Why is this? Blood circulation or something?
There are times when I can see things from distance (signs etc) almost perfectly for a split second and then I lose focus. It's almost like my eyes have forgotten how to focus properly. Anything in this?
mrvision Wrote:Hiya. I have had poor vision since I was ten years old. I wore glasses through school so I could see, but now I'm at work I choose not to. i found wearing them was making my vision even worse, so I go natural. I am going to dedicate myself to these relaxation methods to try to give my eyes some help!
I have some weird 'questions' that I can't find answers to on the internet.
I do a long fitness work out every few days and I notice after the running my vision is much improved. I can see people's faces and features (eyes etc) from pretty far off. Why is this? Blood circulation or something?
There are times when I can see things from distance (signs etc) almost perfectly for a split second and then I lose focus. It's almost like my eyes have forgotten how to focus properly. Anything in this?
Thankyou
Well as a matter of fact, there is something to that. A guess would be that you have gotten hold of the "Universal Swing" as Dr. Bares called it, where everything swings. It's possible that running is just an overall relaxing activity for you. Do you notice things moving while running?
As for street signs, it's basically just that you momentarily looked at it correctly, and then as soon as you recognized it, you stopped looking properly and re-instituted strain.
Out of curiosity, do you know what your current prescription is? And also, you noticed what many find, in that glasses as prescribed by most eye doctors will necessarily get stronger as the years go by.
Would it be possible for you to explain the 'universal swing' theory to me? I've done a bit of researching but there wasn't an awful lot about it.
So from what I gather, the Bates method requires a 'mindset change'- being passive and relaxed, not holding focus when I get flashes of good vision etc?
Shambles just explained the Universal Swing, it's when everything is in motion by optical illusion, instead of stationary.
You do want to be relaxed, but read David's blog because the principles he lays out are how you should look at things. If you get a clear flash, don't stare, but don't be absent either. He explains it best in his blog.
I'm at just over 4 diopters myself and the first thing I successfully did was to stabilize my vision in September, now I'm working on improving it beyond the clear flashes. Nancy started in 2001 with a little over 10 diopters myopia and is now at 1 to 2 diopters and consistently 20/45 or better without glasses. So, as I stated earlier on another thread yesterday, know that your vision can be improved, and stick to working on it. Some cases were and have been cured nearly spontaneously, others took/are taking years. Don't give up, you'll get to your goal eventually.
Clarification: the swing Fiat and Shambles talk about is oppositional movement -- you move your gaze to the right and the image appears to swing to the left. You can see this when you walk or drive or otherwise move your body and the view appears to "move" the opposite way (the view moves back as you move forward). You can also see it when you move your gaze across the eye chart. It's often the first step in people getting used to the eyes' natural movement when they've been holding a frozen gaze from staring through eyeglasses.
The universal swing Bates talks about is slightly different. The healthy eye moves all the time in tiny saccadic motion, constantly scooping up the photons and adjusting the image in the brain so you see clearly. People who work with the eye chart and notice the letters vibrating or pulsing or bouncing slightly are experiencing the universal swing. I read about this for literally years before I saw it myself (I wore a very strong prescription for a long time) and when it first started I thought something was wrong with my vision! Now if I don't see it I know I'm not relaxed enough and not in Allow mode, rather in Push or Try. It's only in the past few years that I've been seeing it on distant objects, like the electric meter on the house across the street when I look out my front window. Bates said "The world moves. Let it move", but it took me a long time to stop trying to hold things static.
Fiat, I hate to correct you since you're so enthusiastic about this work and so good at explaining things, so please don't stop that! I just want it to be clear that most people can see oppositional movement no matter what their level of vision, especially with big objects or over relatively long distances first. The universal swing is more subtle and a smaller movement, and usually comes later in the vision improvement journey. The difference is not just the larger or smaller amplitude of the swing: oppositional movement is the result of intentional movement of your body or head or gaze, while you don't have to do anything at all to experience the universal swing -- it happens by itself even if you're completely still. Hope that helps.
Actually thanks! If I mis-understand something I'd much rather be corrected gently (even if it is a relatively minor mis-understanding) than go about doing something wrong for a really long time. If people knew that I was looking wrong when I was younger and corrected me, I wouldn't even have needed glasses, as an example. So once again, thank you!
I've only been doing the relaxation methods for about a week but I can see some kind of improvement in clarity of distant objects. I guess it's a psychological thing- when we have poor eyesight our brain is sort of resigned to knowing it- whereas when we are proactively aiding our eyes we are able to 'see'. I haven't really studied Bates' ideas but doesn't he suggest it is all in the imagination and psyche?
mrvision Wrote:I've only been doing the relaxation methods for about a week but I can see some kind of improvement in clarity of distant objects. I guess it's a psychological thing- when we have poor eyesight our brain is sort of resigned to knowing it- whereas when we are proactively aiding our eyes we are able to 'see'. I haven't really studied Bates' ideas but doesn't he suggest it is all in the imagination and psyche?
"Vision is nine-tenths mental and one-tenth physical." -- Dr. William H. Bates
Yes, it is largely psychological, however there is still a physical element as well. Basically, if you can properly train the mental part, the physical will follow.
FIAT2LUX Wrote:Yes, it is largely psychological, however there is still a physical element as well. Basically, if you can properly train the mental part, the physical will follow.
Good point; when you 'think right,' you'll have a better chance at achieving better improvement. Imagining, and remembering things imperfectly perpetuates strain, while remembering and imagining things perfectly helps eradicate the strain and better vision follows. But remembering or imagining perfectly follows the same principles of seeing - of seeing things with central fixation, attention constantly changing, or shifting from one part of a thing to another - seeing one part best.
I've been noticing this a lot and it was getting me worried thinking I was squinting or something, sometime the image would expand and contract and it would confuse me, sometimes some parts of the text appear darker and weird stuff.
I notice these tiny movements and thought my eyes were tense you know? Like when you tense your biceps and your arm starts to shake abit like that.
Honestly I am grateful that you help us and share the knowledge you have accumulated over the years. Oftenwhen people find success they leave those people still struggling behind, so thank you.
Shambles, you're welcome. It's every teacher's joy when a student "gets it" in a new way. A lot of what I write is what I wish I had known earlier myself, like I'm somehow teaching a younger me. An image expanding and contracting, as if your brain is re-calibrating the correct size, is a necessary step when minus glasses make things appear smaller and closer. Some patches on the eye chart appearing darker than others is your central fixation re-emerging, rather than continuing to see a large area all the same, the way glasses make you see. Your natural vision is re-asserting itself. Nice going!
Occasionally (as you know Nancy, I already asked you about this on your blog) I've had objects increase and decrease in size within the past month which I understand since then to be a likely part of improving vision, but what confuses me is that sometimes when I see something more clearly than the rest of the scene, is that it is a consistent part of the letter, no matter where I'm actually focusing. Is that okay, or do I have something I might need to change? Like maybe on the Snellen, the hump on the R is crystalline clear, even if I'm directing my attention to the opening on the C on a different line.
