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+--- Thread: notes on looking at details and changing (/showthread.php?tid=1571)
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-03-2011
Unfortunately I have noticed that I get strain in my eyes while I am sleeping at night.
When I wake up in the morning I notice that I have lots of strain in my eyes.
The strain in my eyes disappear during the day as I apply the "search for details method".
But, I think the strain I get in my eyes when I am sleeping will block further improved progress, unfortunately.
So I think I have good vision habits, at least while I am awake,
but there is a mind (mindset) issue also that is unconscious, which I cannot control,
since it comes to surface while I am sleeping.
That is a pity, I have to find another way around it to get further on I think.
Maybe there is an improved imagination aspect too that must be activated in some way while you are sleeping,
because else you would have the wrong visual habits while you are sleeping and it would offset what was regained while awake,
and the improvement wouldn't thus show up.
But, as I read today, "you must accept to fail over and over before you finally can succeed, and the courage to fail is what makes you raise as a person".
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - Nancy - 01-03-2011
I remember Dr. Bates writing about people who are staring in their sleep and so waking up with strained vision, so you're not alone. He recommended you do 50 or 100 long swings before bed to break up the stare. I haven't tried this, as my eyes are most relaxed when I wake up, but if you try it let me know if it helps.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - Alexndre - 01-03-2011
Hi!
It's sure that it's harder to maintain relaxation while sleeping but in one Better Eyesight Magazine, Emily Bates said how she was cured and if I remember it well, she said that she used an alarm clock to wake her up during the night to let her practice. Me too I have problems with eyestrain while sleeping and by palming after and before sleeping and also when if I wake up during the night, it is better. Bates also talked of doing long swings before sleeping, which I also do. At one place he wrote that sleeping on our back was better than sleeping on our stomach or one the side, but I every times I tried to sleep on the back I haven't been able to fall asleep and after some time I turn myself to sleep on the side and I can fall asleep, as if my brain isn't programmed to be able to sleep on my back...
Good luck!
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-04-2011
Thanks so much Nancy and Alexndre for your advice.
I will try the long swing before I go to bed today.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-05-2011
Nancy Wrote:I remember Dr. Bates writing about people who are staring in their sleep and so waking up with strained vision, so you're not alone. He recommended you do 50 or 100 long swings before bed to break up the stare. I haven't tried this, as my eyes are most relaxed when I wake up, but if you try it let me know if it helps.
Yes, it helps definitely, but you have to pay attention to the space around you in the room, and this will relax your brain (improves your brainwaves, Open Focus, Les Fehmi). You don't lock your focus to anything special, and thus you become more aware of the space around you, like floating around, so I understod after having checked up the Open Focus description that this must work, and I was a little bit less strained in the morning actually.
The inability to attend to distance is something that cause myopia I believe. I tried to lock to distance in space, but not to any details, just an illusory point of void that is on your fovea sweeping over the space at a locked distance, and it might work too, cool.
But, I would rather imagine something in space and sweep my attention over it, without locking on anything, I might try that instead actually, seems more fun to me, and I think it might improve the imagination in the dreams such that actually it is possible to search for details in the dreams too. ;D
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-06-2011
I found an interesting quote on this site (from FlowerPower):
"... I also learned (from Liberman and then he refers to Open Focus idea by Les Fehmi, but I am sure many others are on this course) that vision has two aspects as well as our brain, one is linear seeing, seeing of details that is under left brain control and the spatial, relational that is under right brain control. And this is valid for the thinking as well. Now what happens when in linear mode that is so-called emergenncy mode, that's the mode of focusing, analysing, this mode needs lots of energy. In our overuse of this mode the vision blur comes as well as shut down of our other senses, we overfocus on things that we do or need to do. As opposed to this, the spatial mode brings relaxation, doesn't use energy, but it refreshes you, you are seeing all the things with equal meaning, there is no strain. "
So out of this you can draw the conclusion that the long swing is good in combination with "searching for details".
I think thus that my staring problems at night will disappear.
But, maybe you already got this, I just wanted to make it clear to myself that I understand this, and maybe someone else is interested too.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - Pikachu - 01-06-2011
That IS quite interesting! It seems to follow my recent observations lately. Thanks for sharing.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - David - 01-07-2011
Taken from dictionary.com, one definition of strain:
- to make violent physical efforts; strive hard
This is the definition that people have in mind when they want to resolve the issue pretty much by relaxation alone. It stands to reason that if trying too hard is the problem, then relaxing and taking things easy, stopping the eyes from trying so hard to see, is the solution.
Another couple definitions of strain:
- to stretch beyond the proper point or limit
- to make excessive demands upon
These two definitions paint the idea of strain differently than the first definition. Here, strain doesn't mean trying too hard. It would mean more along the lines of putting too many demands on the eyes or visual system, expecting it to do more than it can. Here, the problem isn't trying to see, but trying to see too much at once.
As far as shifting and movement, I've been experimenting with it lately, several minutes at a time at least, and repeated over days and weeks, and I'm learning a lot lately that helps fill out the solution a little better and that I'm going to write up. I'd suggest anyone do the same experimentation if they're so inclined. But any process of this sort, or way to see, that seems to promote better and better vision has to be repeated over and over for you to determine much about it. The mistake people sometimes make is finding something that appears to help once or twice and going nuts over it as if it were the final answer, and then it stops working. Vision can be so malleable that just about anything may appear to work at some point. It has to be pretty consistently repeatable - until it is, it's at best incomplete, and at worse it may still be way off because the person didn't really grasp what he was doing when his vision cleared up temporarily and paid attention to only the things that didn't matter.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - sean - 01-07-2011
David
I appreciate the efforts you have made in this, ecspecially over the last few months. I have been keeping at this searching for details method consistently over the same period. That's a very important point you made there about getting down to the essentials, finding something that is repeatable and I can identify with that and it can be frustrating sometimes.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-07-2011
I was reviewing a Bates quote that David found:
"When the patient is capable of a short shift, on the contrary, the long shift lowers the vision." ???
Now, comes the question, how much will actually the long shifts worsen your sight in the long run, because they will according to that quote !
According to the quote it is not obvious what the "search for details method" will lead to IN THE LONG RUN, is it really improved sight, just unchanged sight, or just a self perpetuating spiral of worsened vision over time.
Please, the quote perplexes me, how do you think it shall be interpreted ?
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - Pikachu - 01-07-2011
@hammer: The way I see it, it means that the long shift is definitely much better than no swing, and is relaxing, but the short swing is even more relaxing. The eye with perfect vision shifts uses very small shifts. While your eyesight will improve as a result of long shifts, the shorter the shift, the closer the resemblence to normal eyes, and as a result, the closer you can get to perfect vision.
What I'm trying to say is that those of us with very poor vision cannot "shift" unless the length is sizeable. Those who have normal vision can notice the oppositional movement even with very small shifts and so making long shifts is essentially a step or two backwards.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - David - 01-07-2011
hammer Wrote:I was reviewing a Bates quote that David found:
"When the patient is capable of a short shift, on the contrary, the long shift lowers the vision." ???
Now, comes the question, how much will actually the long shifts worsen your sight in the long run, because they will according to that quote !
According to the quote it is not obvious what the "search for details method" will lead to IN THE LONG RUN, is it really improved sight, just unchanged sight, or just a self perpetuating spiral of worsened vision over time.
Please, the quote perplexes me, how do you think it shall be interpreted ?
The shorter the shift, the smaller the distance away is the first point that is to be seen worse. So the shorter the shift, the smaller the point seen best. That's central fixation, and the better it is, the better the vision is overall. But I think it's important while doing so to be aware of the fact that the previous point is seen worse, and the way to do that is to narrow the attention to smaller and smaller details. The previous point may still seem to look pretty good even though you aren't looking directly at it, and that's actually great, because of course we want to be able to perceive more than ONLY one point at a time (ie: we want peripheral vision extending out from any point regarded), but if you look for a small enough detail, you will find that you can't see such a small detail on the previous point so well.
Also, the visual system wants the eyes to be doing a lot of shorter shifts. Think of that video trick that The Matrix makers did with freezing and smoothly rotating the perspective around the guy jumping in the air , which is done with a handful of cameras and doing some fancy thing to merge the perspectives into a smooth 3d effect. The human visual system also benefits from the same perspective shifts to get 3d perception, accomplished by multiple things - two eyes, shifting, and moving the head. The smaller the shifts, the smaller the change in perspective and direction (sorry, these might not be the right photography terms) and the better things can be put together.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - hammer - 01-08-2011
Thanks for your answers.
I like such "biofeedback" tests like to check if seeing black when palming for instance, because then I know that I am heading in the right direction at least.
And here is two new such tests due to your answers:
As the "strain" thus prohibits the important very short shifts, essential for 3D awareness for instance, and this means that if you can do those very short shifts (according to Davids very good description of how a normal eye works) then you know that your eyes are relaxed, and thus this is an utmost valuable relaxation test for your eyes ! Also there is a test to check if you can see very intense 3D and this also checks that your eyes are relaxed.
I had for instance another such test also that checks if you can imagine a "fairy or what ever" when palming, and if you can do it then you don't need to palm anymore.
So all those checks makes it easier to repeat an exercise, because you only exercise when you need to.
Actually such a checklist would be very beneficial to follow for a beginner I think.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - Pikachu - 01-08-2011
Agree with that last line of yours, hammer.
I've noticed a bit of success with imagining a period. It's one of those things that carries onto everything else, and it's a good thing that I finally understood how this "imagination" concept works. One of the greatest obstacles to beginners (myself included) is the inability to recognize success and failure. It can be very difficult to tell if you are doing something right or not and just posting what you feel on the forums is often insufficient for others to be able to make a good judgment.
Re: notes on looking at details and changing - seetheleaves - 01-09-2011
David,
Does the following personal experience describe these 'short shifts' or is it unrelated?
Whenever I have reached a level of relaxation and 'clear flash' in which I no longer even have to think about keeping the clear flash going or maintaining my relaxation (it just happens on its own), I notice that when I begin to look around (instead of just at the Snellen) I can physically feel my eyes moving back and forth in tiny, constant, horizontal (and rather rapid) shifts. It's a very odd feeling because it is exactly the opposite of the more static feeling I am used to with low vision. It's like my eyes are scanning the surroundings on their own, back and forth, back and forth, with tiny shifts over the 'picture' of the room, taking everything in. It's extremely relaxing but a little disconcerting because my mind is like: 'what are my eyes doing?! And then of course that thought causes my eye movements to slow and then cease alltogether and I'm back to poor vision.
Thanks for helping us understand this concept!
(Oh and I can definitely see how moving into a long swing at the point when my eyes are shifting on their own would drag them back into lowered vision - it's like they already have a natural rhythm and to perform a long swing would push them out of that rhythm)