+- Eyesight Improvement Forum (https://www.iblindness.org/forum)
+-- Forum: General Discussion (https://www.iblindness.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Bates Method (https://www.iblindness.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Thread: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured (/showthread.php?tid=1569)
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Andrea Major - 09-10-2010
I disagree. We don't succeed because we don't listen very well.
Then people get frustrated, create their own theories about the need for personality change and such, giving themselves and others a good excuse to lay it all off.
I, too, have strained a bit in front of the Snellen. but then when I went back to the book, the Story of Emily chapter especially, I realized something: People with high myopia should never stand 10-20 feet from the Snellen and wait for a miracle! :-) (It may have worked that way for a few, but I would assume that to be a small minority.) I don't chase those clear flashes any more, which happened totally randomly. That's unrealistic expectation, that's being out of control. Getting really close is helping me a great deal. 6 inches or less, whatever. It is all about feeling good, improving the imagination from whatever distance and increasing our confidence in our vision at any focal point.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Nancy - 09-11-2010
I agree. Standing close enough to the snellen so I could see the top rows without straining was huge for me, and helped me realize the difference when I looked at a lower row with strain. I used to strain all the time! Recognizing this was quite humbling, but a necessary step to moving forward.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - sorrisiblue - 09-12-2010
Both AndreaMajor and Nancy make good points I agree with.
Dr. Bates often wrote: there is a right way and a wrong way to practice (his relaxation techniques). Often, people stand in front of the chart and strain to see. That is a demonstration of what not to do. Read pretty much any of Dr. Bates's many articles to get ideas for what the 'right' thing to do is. (start by moving a bit and blinking!) As both Nancy and AndreaMajor point out, and I'll reiterate, myopes need to stand closer, often times closer than 5 feet in the beginning! You should be able to easily read a few lines. Use those as optimums and practice briefly on the lower ones, looking up at the 'easy' ones now and then to relax. Pretty soon the smaller letters become optimums as well, and are easier to see. Then you can take a step back!
I experienced my fastest improvement when I practiced with the chart every day in the morning and the evening.
People don't necessarily fail, but they often get stuck and give up before they have really given the method a fair chance. If what you're doing now doesn't help you, then you're going to have to do something different (sounds obvious, but think about it in terms of daily habits). And if you're going to be able to find out if something you do different is helping you, then you'll have to do it consistently and have some tool like the Snellen chart to recognize progress!
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - marcdeleeuw - 09-13-2010
Dear all,
In my opinion, according to my own experience after practising the Bates method more than two years, you have to do three things. Fully dodging your eyes, fully dodging your mind, and fully dodging your eyesight. Shortly, do NOTHING! Forget your eyes fully, your eyes are doing their work by themselves.
That's the only thing that works: doing NOTHING.
People with perfect eyesight, for example my wife, never thinks about their eyes. That's the clue.
While doing nothing, my eyesight is still improving.
Marc de Leeuw
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - JMartinC4 - 09-13-2010
Andrea Major Wrote:I disagree. We don't succeed because we don't listen very well. Then people get frustrated, create their own theories about the need for personality change and such, giving themselves and others a good excuse to lay it all off.I think we don't "listen very well' because listening hard or focused listening stimulates our unconscious memory of being temporarily blinded at birth by strangers and then having to listen for our mothers rather than look and listen. Having to listen closely now (or even to think hard) prompts nearpoint fixation. No one wants to have blurry vision. But at the same time we were (probably and hopefully - otherwise it probably leads to anti-social personality) being soothed by the blinders and our parents, so we unconsciously also believe blur is okay if not good and preferable. But it isn't. It's a conundrum. It's a Catch-22. Damned visually if we do, and damned mentally if we don't (or vice-versa). And the blinding was unequal and unequally timed, so there is dichotomy within the blur itself. Diabolical, disgusting and disheartening.
I, too, have strained a bit in front of the Snellen. But then when I went back to the book, the Story of Emily chapter especially, I realized something: People with high myopia should never stand 10-20 feet from the Snellen and wait for a miracle! :-) (It may have worked that way for a few, but I would assume that to be a small minority.) I don't chase those clear flashes any more, which happened totally randomly. That's unrealistic expectation, that's being out of control. Getting really close is helping me a great deal. 6 inches or less, whatever. It is all about feeling good, improving the imagination from whatever distance and increasing our confidence in our vision at any focal point.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - DaniFixe - 09-13-2010
If i'm myope is because i strain at near poins ? Is why getting closer to Snellen Chart will help? Is that the connection ?
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - JMartinC4 - 09-13-2010
DaniFixe Wrote:If i'm myope is because i strain at near poins ? Is why getting closer to Snellen Chart will help? Is that the connection ?MY OPINION: No, you feel relaxed at the nearpoint because you're nearpoint-fixated. It's a mental disorder. If you were myopic, it would be impossible for you to ever see a flash of clear distance vision unless you were wearing magic lenses or had magic surgery.
You're nearpoint-fixated because the normal vision you were born with was immediately taken away from you and replaced with unequal and unequally timed glaring 20/400 blur, and during those minutes or hours of blur you were forced to rely on your other senses which skewed your visual orientation and created a dysfunction between your left and right eyes and left and right occipital lobes.
But also during that time you were being soothed so that you began to believe blurry vision was okay or good. When the antibiotic wore off from the first eye, maybe you liked the clarity but you also still liked the blur in the other eye. So maybe you switched back and forth. Or maybe you just preferred the blur and stayed fixated at the nearpoint in order to retain the blur in the distance. It all felt normal. It probably depends on what was happening all around you at the time. When the 2nd eye antibiotic wore off a few seconds or minutes later, who knows what mental adjustments you would have had to make.
Face it, your visual development was off to a bad start.
The antibiotics also temporarily damaged your tear-making conjunctiva which damaged your ability to control the tear film necessary for clear distance vision. Unfortunately you unconsciously learned that a damaged tear film would maintain the soothing blur. Now you have to learn to undo that and create and maintain the tear film. Good luck with that!
Lenses and surgery change the angle of the incoming light rays to match the skewed angles of your visual system. What you want to do is learn to unify and adjust the angles of your visual system to receive the distant incoming light rays instead of adjusting the light rays to your skewed visual system. Sounds near impossible. Light rays from distant objects enter your eyes at nearly parallel angles - it's easy to point them all in the right direction using lenses, or by shaving your corneas. Not so easy the other way around.
The problem is the visual angle of your left eye is different from the visual angle of your right eye and both of those are different from the visual angle of your 'inner eye' or your mind. The closer you are to what you're looking at, the easier it is to unite those three competing parts of your visual system.
The optic nerves cross over at the optic chiasm just behind the eyes. Your left occipital lobe receives light signals from the outside of your left eye's retina and the inside of your right eye's retina; the right occipital lobe receives light signals from the outside of your right eye's retina and the inside of your left eye's retina. The 'strain' you feel when looking into the distance is a result of trying to unify the disparate parts of your visual system.
Just one man's opinion, of course. Peace.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Deliverance - 09-13-2010
JMartinC4 : Your opinion discouraged me :
, give me to understand that the Bates method is of little help. ???
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - JMartinC4 - 09-13-2010
lordofthesun Wrote:JMartinC4 : Your opinion discouraged me :The Bates Method is a godsend. It is the first and the only truly scientific attempt to reverse the problem of nearpoint fixation. Unfortunately the Bates Method was 'set in stone' prior to the advent of routine neonatal eye antibiotics, and so it needs revision and upgrading to accomodate (!) the further degradations of the problem(s) caused thereby.
Palming: recreates the relaxed visual pre-birth and pre-antibiotics environment; allows for reorientation upon uncovering
Swinging: counters the tendency to fixate, and encourages natural use of the eyes and unification of the visual system components
Sunning: eyes closed in sunlight, eyes open in presence of shiny cd in a styrofoam cup biofeedback device, recreates 20/400 blur and helps us learn to avoid the noxious blurring glarry stimulus
Shifting: counters the tendency to fixate and encourages natural use of the eyes and unification of the visual system components
Central Fixation: promotes relaxation and reduces blur/noise along the visual system components
The Bates Method is of incalcuable value.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - DaniFixe - 09-14-2010
When i get close to the snellen chart,which lines should i have in front of my nose? The firt ones or the smaller ones?
The exercise is just reading the letter and watch the perfect black ?
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Tomi - 09-14-2010
lordofthesun Wrote:JMartinC4 : Your opinion discouraged me :
Look, don't be discouraged with just one man's opinion. I, for one, tend to disagree with JMartinC4's ideas from what I've read. Now my opinion is natural vision improvement works. That said it requires patience. For some more than others, I suppose. You also need to find what works best for you. It's a game of trial and error and pick-yourselfes-up, it's tough to win sometimes, but the prize is definately worth the effort. Chin up.
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Deliverance - 09-14-2010
T Wrote:lordofthesun Wrote:JMartinC4 : Your opinion discouraged me :
Look, don't be discouraged with just one man's opinion. I, for one, tend to disagree with JMartinC4's ideas from what I've read. Now my opinion is natural vision improvement works. That said it requires patience. For some more than others, I suppose. You also need to find what works best for you. It's a game of trial and error and pick-yourselfes-up, it's tough to win sometimes, but the prize is definately worth the effort. Chin up.
Yes, It was only for a moment, as well, I can see for my self N.V.I works, I'm still looking for what works best for me and I started 3 months ago, so I hope I can find my correct path soon :-X
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - ho_from_vietnam - 09-14-2010
Quote:The snellen eye chart is mostly useless. I wasted countless hours straining in front of that damn thing and would always end up straining more and feel like I am failing.
That is wrong, man. Talk as a person that followed Bated method from may/2008 untill now, I have improved my eye sight from 20/200 to 20/30 now. 20/30 constantly everyday man. It's not 20/20 yet but it's good enough for me. To be honest I have not tried my best to applied Bated method to my daily life. Some months I worked on snellen chart very hard, but some months I just was so lazy and do nothing. And from my experience the months that I improved alot were the months that I took a lot of time to clear the snelen chart.
It do took long time to improve your eye man. You can check out my older posts in 2008, you can see that at first the progress is seem to be quite fast. But I slowed down later.
Why It take so long to get 20/20? Just because most of us have been near sighted for MANY YEARS. That's why it does took SOME YEARs to reverse your bad eye sight. Don't expect quick result, you will be disappointed for sure. The longer you have been near sighted, the worse your eyes were, the longer it will take to get 20/20 back. It's just that simple man.
And about the snellen chart, for me it's the most powerful tool that i can use to improve eye sight. Some other methods I found useful too, IE: following edge line of distant objects (houses, buildings...), looking at moving object far away, swinging... But nothing comes close to snellen chart. You just have to do it the right way. Put your chart at the appropriate distant that you can see the biggest letter, you don't need to see it sharp and clear. It can be blured but you STILL CAN RECOGNIZE IT, IT"S VERY IMPORTANT. Then moving your eye sight, see different parts of the letter. after a few minutes you can see that your eye and your brain will clear the letter automatically. That is the way you improve your eye sight. Then move to smaller letter. After a few week put a chart a little far away. For me, I just need to worked with the big letter, when I clear the big letters I can see smaller letters quite clear too.
Prepare your self for long journey, but you will very happy with the result that you will get man
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Andrea Major - 09-15-2010
I don't think anyone here agrees with JMartinC4. His logic of connecting the Neonatal Antibiotic Eyedrops to the Bates Method is very twisted in my opinion. Now that wouldn't be a problem, but the fact that he discourages most newcomers to this site is. However, if I am wrong and you do agree with him, please post a reply!
Re: Why progress is slow, and most people are never truely cured - Andrea Major - 09-15-2010
Hi ho_from_vietnam!
That's very good news! Good for you! Taking 2 years is not too long at all, considering how many of us have/will have suffered all their lives with their vision... maybe you want to post your success story as so many of us would find your story encouraging.. or is it your aim to improve even more??