I am making my first baby steps in "looking at details", and I've found that while sometimes it helps a lot to clear my eyesight quickly, other times I seem unable to do it right and I end up with more blur and even pain. Obviously, the difference between looking at details and staring at details is quite subtle and needs further clarification.
It feels like sometimes I just can't remember the right way of looking at detail, can't get to the right state of the mind. Have you got some mental reminders, some thoughts that you can think every time that help you remember the right way of looking?
A good example of such reminder I've found in this quote:
Quote:By only mentally narrowing your area of expected clearest vision, you can remain receptive to seeing anything, and the burden of having to try to see clearly is taken off your shoulders.
For me, the phrase "narrow your area of expected clearest vision" is one of such great reminders. I.e. don't make out details but only expect them, paying attention to the narrowest possible central area.
For me the best thought (but you must feel it too) is as follows: Oh, what is it? I´ve never seen that before. It´s realy interesting.
This works for me fantastically
For me trying to look at details is unhelpful and straining, letting myself look at details and inviting the clarity in works. I have to ask myself all the time, "Am I trying?" or "Am I rushing?", and then stop if I am.
With small eye movements, you can't prove to yourself, without some sort of assistance, that you really are making small shifts. You won't really see or feel them. Larger movements you can confirm by the major change in your visual image. Small movements might seem like you're only moving your mind. When your eyes move even that little bit, your visual data is refreshed, and although you're only mostly conscious of the latest refresh, your mind uses not only the latest refresh but also the data from prior refreshes to create the image that you think you're seeing now. The more data the mind has, the better it can create an image. The better you pay attention to each point you're looking at, the fuller the refresh. The smaller the detail, the better your attention. So to effectively look at smaller details, you would have to repeatedly look at a detail very close to the last one you looked at. So the size of your central attention narrows as it moves over a small area, as in a snake's tail getting smaller. Immediately after large shifts, your attention is momentarily large again until you start the snake's tail pattern of narrowing it.
In that instant of moving between larger objects, the momentary large area of attention serves the purpose of orienting your attention over the larger area. I used to say that your attention should never be larger than the smallest point, but now I realize that isn't strictly true. The larger attention serves its momentary purpose, so the visual system has to be capable of it, and the error lies in how people with blurry vision extend out this state for a longer period than was intended in its design.
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"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
I am making my first baby steps in "looking at details", and I've found that while sometimes it helps a lot to clear my eyesight quickly, other times I seem unable to do it right and I end up with more blur and even pain. Obviously, the difference between looking at details and staring at details is quite subtle and needs further clarification.
It feels like sometimes I just can't remember the right way of looking at detail, can't get to the right state of the mind. Have you got some mental reminders, some thoughts that you can think every time that help you remember the right way of looking?
A good example of such reminder I've found in this quote:
Quote:By only mentally narrowing your area of expected clearest vision, you can remain receptive to seeing anything, and the burden of having to try to see clearly is taken off your shoulders.
For me, the phrase "narrow your area of expected clearest vision" is one of such great reminders. I.e. don't make out details but only expect them, paying attention to the narrowest possible central area.
Do you have more of this stuff?
Hello there,
If you focus on blur to much it could be a help to instead focus on the intensity of the colors and of course focus on dynamic relaxation while shifting.
For instance if you look at the eyechart you can just for instance look at the largest upper E all the time and instead imagine how it becomes blacker and blacker. When it has become really black you imagine what really black was once again and try to see REALLY black E. When you see a REALLY black E you can look down on the bottom line and read those letters, and then you passed, at least hopfully
I know your question was addressed to David but I find the following passages from his Shifting in a Triangle blog post are very useful:
"This is about learning to pay attention to a different point in turn despite the fact that (the) two points are close enough together that you can see them both at the same time."
"If suddently the four letters you're working with become so blurry that you have trouble even finding the E in the first step... look at something farther away... so you are always able to revert to a backup plan of looking at something farther away."
In practice, as you say, it can be difficult to remember what you are supposed to be doing.
