+- 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: My Vision Journal (/showthread.php?tid=1596)
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 01-18-2011
1. I've been trying to blink and breathe all day. It's much easier said than done.
2. Results from yesterday:
After Palming: 7/200 (0.035)
Random Check: 7/200 (0.035)
Best with Snellen: 6/100 (0.060)
After Dinner: 8/200 (0.040)
Considering how bad my eyes are and how this data is all based on the first two lines of the eyechart, these measurements can be quite inaccurate, especially when I have to be my own judge as to whether something that is "partly clear" deserves the same measurement as something that is "barely clear". It's not really all that important though.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 01-19-2011
1. I'm working on blinking properly. I've been experimenting and I hope to get it right within a week.
2. Measurments from yesterday:
After Near-distance Work: 8/200 (0.040)
Best with Snellen Practice: 6/70 (0.086)
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 01-24-2011
1. Over the past 24 hours, I've done swinging for at least two of those hours, which I estimate to be roughly 2000 swings, and that's not counting the ones I do while I'm engaged in some other activity. Not bad, but the unfortunate thing about it is that I'm not likely going to be able to have that kind of time very often. Unless I'm quite mistaken, it seems that exercises work best when done correctly over a long period of time, the operative word being correctly. Palming correctly for two hours straight will be more effective, in general, than palming for ten minutes, twelve separate times.
2. I've decided to, at least for the moment, stop measuring my eyes to the Snellen, as it is simply too trivial. The difference between a good day and a bad day is hardly even noticeable when I measure it and the eyechart is a sort of "pessimum" for me. The longer I look at it, the worse it gets!
3. For now, my focus will be to swing, swing, and swing some more. I know I'm not doing it completely correctly yet, or else those 2000 swings would have effected a noticeable improvement in vision.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 01-31-2011
1. I haven't posted anything here in a week. I think an explanation is warranted: I've been trying to figure all of this Bates stuff out and didn't want to post anything, mainly because I realize that what I post one day will likely be contradicted with what I post the next day. I'm still trying to figure things out, and I'm beginning to realize that there is a difference between saying something and actually doing it. When I explain something to myself, it sounds so simple, yet it's so hard to accomplish in practice. I'm taking this as a sign that I should do less talking/analyzing and more Bates. I can pretend that I know everything, but until I can actually show lasting improvement, I'm only an ignorant fool and there's no excuse for that. So expect to see me log in and make the occasional post over the next few weeks, but not much more than that.
2. Where's my vision at today? To be honest, I don't really have a clue. What that likely means is that there is still no real improvement yet, because if there was, I'd notice it. I really need to put more time into this stuff, preferably time in which I am not distracted by anything else.
3. Focus: Shifting and Swinging. Several months into my serious Bates adventure, I'm still confused and I suspect that only I will be able to help myself, but if anyone out there would like to explain to me how he/she does this (the more details the better, no pun intended) I'd appreciate it.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 02-14-2011
Has two weeks done anything for me? I'd say so.
1. I've discovered that I have a LOT of subconscious strain. When I swing, that warm feeling in my cheeks is strain! It's interesting that unlike the eye-pain strain, this kind of strain does not go away just by my noticing it and relaxing the muscle area. It's as if that area doesn't take orders from me anymore!
2. From #1, I've come up with new, better goals:
Goal #1: Swing without having the facial strain.
Goal #2: Read without eye-pain strain or facial strain.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-09-2011
It's been about three months since I last posted in my journal. To be honest, it's really just been a combination of factors: I've been more busy lately, I haven't had a whole lot of stuff to post about, and I've had little success over the past few months, but more than anything else, I got out of the habit and with each passing day, it became easier to say, "Who cares what I write about?"
At this point, I'm steadily making progress (I think), although at a turtle's pace. I've still yet to eliminate strain from reading or from swinging (my previous goals), but I feel that I'm getting wiser with each passing day. The problem, I think, is that I think far too much. Thinking in and of itself is a straining act, and perphaps this is why I haven't improved much at all yet! I'm hoping to use this post to organize my thoughts of the past few months into one concise post that will make it easier to figure out exactly what it is I plan to do.
1. Indirect Proofing - Around mid-April, I spent two weeks trying to "relax" and not pay attention to anything. Unfortunately, I did the latter, which is not at all synonymous with the former. Zoning out leads to even greater strain, as I proved firsthand. Funny how I read David's post about it a week later. I have since stopped this harmful practice, but much of the strain I had from doing it still persists. I wonder if the strain was created or if it was merely revealed by the zoning out.
2. Many strains - The aforementioned strains, I feel, can be classified according to what vision habit it is that creates them. I feel that the jaw-neck strain I get comes from a lack of movement as well as a sort of tightening of the facial muscles. I suspect that I am "grabbing my eyes" less than before, and my body has compensated by grabbing my jaw and neck area. Just a guess and it's not all that important. Interestingly, this strain tends to come up when I happen to be thinking about strain (in general: i.e. how to prevent strain). There is also a "ear strain", which makes it feel as if my ears are unusually warm. It tends to occur when I am trying to see a significant area of my visual field at one time instead of a point (or at least a small area). Not as annoying as the jaw-neck strain mentioned earlier, which, by the way, feels as if someone is lightly choking me.
3. Exercise vs Relaxation - I've come to the realization that there are two schools of thought on vision improvement: one that focuses on the execution of exercises and one that focuses on relaxation. This forum community, obviously, supports the latter, but given my poor (though improving) results with the relaxation, I figured that I might as well "expand my horizons" so to speak and try out some exercises. I'm sure that some might consider it pointless, but I figure that it's worth a try. There seem to be a significant number of people who benefit from one method or the other, so I guess it couldn't hurt to try both. I will not, however, post much of anything that is specifically related to the "exercise school" of vision improvement, as I realize that most of us here are more in agreement with the "relaxation school".
4. Swinging - Slight improvement lately. I found David's post about pointing one's eyes in the direction of the swing to be quite helpful. I feel that pointing them too far creates strain, but just "leading" the eyes by directing the attention to the left or to the right seems to make the swing more noticeable. I hope for a breakthrough any day now.
On another note, I've also read Bates' book again, and found the part where he talks about not holding any point for more than a fraction of a second particularly interesting. It got me thinking: Why don't I see what happens if I don't hold anything for more than a quarter of a second? The result was that I had problems finding things to shift to after a while (smaller shifts might have helped), but I felt more relaxed while I was doing it which is definitely a good sign. I feel that this is a key to shifting (when reading) that I did not understand before. I had always just shifted from one point to another and waited at each point for a second or two before moving back.
5. I liked Otto's last post about not thinking about stuff and just doing stuff for the sake of it. Letting everything go, I believe he said. I really need to do this more, but alas, I always have to find something to think about: Am I doing it right? What should I feel? Am I straining? Am I improving? What if I'm wrong? Thoughts like that just kill any chances of my improving. I really need to remember this. Let's hope that I can improve on this in the weeks to come.
6. Optometrist - I expect to have an appointment in the next few weeks or so (not exactly sure yet). At this point, I would be happy with a 0.25 diopter reduction, just to prove to myself (and others in my community) that it's possible to improve the eyesight, even if it's just a little bit right now.
I think that's it for now. Reading is still a problem, but at this point, it's more a matter of remembering to shift rather than trying to figure out how to shift (the problem has changed). I still very much appreciate comments of any sort!
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-10-2011
1. I need to correct something I wrote in my previous post. It seems that the Long Swing is even better when the attention is not diverted at all! Just notice the objects swinging by while keeping the attention at the same direction as the eyes, head, and body.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-11-2011
1. Lots of ups and downs the last couple of days. It feels great to be relaxed and it sucks to be strained (obviously).
2. I found something quite interesting. The "muscle exercises" (for lack of a better term), which I define to be those that don't seem to have relaxation as a focus (i.e. fusion, shifting from near point to far point, etc.), seem to relax me! Just a few minutes ago in fact, I was long swinging and found that the strain sort of "came out", which is to say that I wasn't very relaxed, but when I started shifting from the near point to the far point and back again (several times), I immediately felt myself relaxing. Strange! I'll continue to mix relaxation exercises with "muscle exercises" and see what happens. I'm still holding out hope that I'll get the hang of palming and the long swing soon!
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-16-2011
1. Getting nowhere fast. I still struggle with "living in the moment" and just letting my eyes go.
2. Swinging is still a problem because of point mentioned above. I still think too much and I don't know how to shut it down.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-19-2011
1. Still trying to get the swinging right. I feel like I'm going in circles. I rediscovered that swinging is easier and more relaxing when I pay attention to the periphery and notice the movement from there. This came after I realized that most of my strain comes from my central vision (covering it with my palm and then removing makes my vision temporarily better). But this is something I found out several months ago (minus the central vision part)! I'm pretty sure I gave up on this idea a while back because I could make no further progress, but since I've come back to it, I'll see if I can find a way to keep going forward. Trial and error must succeed in the end!
2. Noticed that my visual acuity in both eyes are pretty close, yet the eyeglasses prescription puts them a diopter or so apart. Interesting.
Re: My Vision Journal - JMartinC4 - 05-20-2011
Pikachu Wrote:1. ... Trial and error must succeed in the end!1. - Absolutely.
2. Noticed that my visual acuity in both eyes are pretty close, yet the eyeglasses prescription puts them a diopter or so apart. Interesting.
2. - I was thinking about this, and one thing I think is happening is that the optician forces the patient to look straight ahead with the face and body pointed straight ahead. Yet we know that our visual systems are misaligned. I've noticed that most of my binocular clear flashes occur when my eyes do not seem to be pointed straight ahead exactly.
Also, the optician forces us to keep our heads still and stare straight ahead - yet I know that while experiencing a clearflash I usually have to blink and keep my face/eyes in motion slightly.
So, what the optician is actually measuring is some unnaturally static, misaligned visual configuration. No wonder it seems wrong to those of us who have experienced clearflashing.
As I've said - lenses (and surgery as well) are not designed to correct any misalignment of the visual system - they simply alter the angle of the incoming light to fit the misalignment! Worthless except in an emergency or where safety is an issue.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-20-2011
@JMartinC4: That's an interesting thought, and while the misalignment idea seems to be true to some extent (how much I do not know for sure), that is not exactly what I mean. I should have been more specific: My eyes are pretty close acuity-wise, but in order for the eyeglasses (or other corrective lens) to have the same correction on both eyes, a different diopter correction is needed for each eye.
In any event, I don't think that the observation merits much discussion. It was just a thought. But the part about looking straight ahead I feel is quite interesting to me, not necessarily because of the alignment concept but because I have noticed that I strain more when I try to look straight ahead, or in any exact direction for that matter. When you start to question whether you have everything centered or if you're looking to much to one direction or another, it is very straining for the mind!
Re: My Vision Journal - JMartinC4 - 05-21-2011
I've been working on this for 37 years. It's an alignment problem. The alignment problem causes the myopia. The aligment problem stems from an unbalanced dominance problem. The unbalanced dominance problem stems from unequal neonatal blur. My eyesight greatly improved today. It was both exhilarating and depressing. Exhilarating to know that I'm near the end of my quest for normal vision; depressing to realize the causes, the losses, and the work left to do. You heard it here first. At David's Bates Method Lab.
O0
8)
Re: My Vision Journal - JMartinC4 - 05-24-2011
Pikachu Wrote:from 07Sep2010: Optometrist Measurement:June 2010: -6.50 Left, -5.00 RightI was reviewing pikachu's thread, and wanted to point out that s/he is an anomaly - like me - in that both eyes are nearsighted, with considerable difference between the two, but contrary to the overwhelming norm, the better eye is still dominant. Read about ocular dominance here:
from 18Nov2010: Observation: When I swing my eyes from the left periphery to the right, I can see a noticeable oppositional movement, which I believe is natural. When I swing them from right to left, the oppositional movement of objects is barely noticeable. What is the cause of this phenomenon and how might I fix it if it is indeed a problem?
At the moment, this is what I have come up with:
1) My dominant right eye is what causes the oppositional movement when I go from left to right, but it's not as visible when I go from right to left since then, the left eye leads the right.
2) Astigmatism.
I originally thought it might be the first one, then thought it was likely the second one. Now, I really don't know which it could be.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance</a><!-- m -->
I wonder how many others of us posting here are the same?
I'll repeat that I am experiencing excellent improvements in vision and balancing of ocular dominance by a daily routine of thirty 360 degree long swings - ten while letting the left eye lead while turning left and right eye lead while turning right; ten while letting the left eye lead while turning right and right eye lead while turning left; and ten while trying to let both eyes share the lead simultaneously. I do the routine at work standing in front of a large mirror, and at home sitting in a swivel chair in front of my hd tv.
Re: My Vision Journal - Pikachu - 05-24-2011
1. I'll try to blink and shift with small details whenever I can remember. I keep telling myself that but I find it difficult to execute in practice! It's clearly a benefit though, so I just have to keep practicing the correct vision habits when I can remember. Laziness is no excuse!
2. I am still working on the long swing. Before I forget, I need to list all of the problems I encountered: paying too much attention to any one object, anticipating (and inadvertently forcing) the swing instead of simply noticing it, getting "stuck" at a certain spot, paying too much attention to the visual field, paying too little attention to the visual field, thinking about my vision, worrying...did I miss any?
3. Shifting was somewhat relaxing this morning - did it with two distant treetops. I find it hard to do indoors though, unless the objects are relatively closeby.
4. Reading is slightly easier when I read below the actual text, but it's very tempting to look directly at the letters. Another habit that needs to change, I guess.
5. Palming works occasionally now, although I have yet to maintain it for more than five minutes. In any event, I feel that gaining a bit of relaxation for just a few minutes every once in a while is still a step forward considering that I couldn't do it at all before!