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Re: Imagination - sean - 10-21-2010
Pikachu
Back from stream of unconsciousness mode! I know I've seen Bates refer to imagination with the eyes open on several occasions. Mind you, I went ahead with this on my own initiative and saw the 'official approval' later.
There's an article in the article library on this site called A Study in Imagination.
Here's one extract from it:
"This patient became completely cured of a functional discomfort when he became able to use his imagination perfectly. His mental pictures became as vivid as though he saw them with his actual eyes. In fact he devoted most of his waking hours to thinking of mental pictures with his eyes open alternating with his eyes closed."
I wonder if it works for me because my myopia is so severe? It sometimes brings perfect visions, but just doing the build-up as it were and not relaxing that extra bit always improves eyesight. Have you tried it? I find even giving something 10 mins is a major achievement - I know that sounds weird.
I built this into a rigid regime which I have followed slavishly. That doesn't sound good does it? But I knew, or feared, that I'd just not do it otherwise. Time now to move on, well shortly. The idea given in the fairy story is to imagine the black point (or fairy if you like) wherever you are looking, it's really tiny when looking at something near, bigger when further away. I never got to that stage as I could only ever imagine the fairy in a concrete situation, and I find it much easier (though still difficult) to imagine it on my kitchen table when I'm at work that on my desk when I'm at home. If I'm looking up at something I find it hard to imagine the fairy on my table because the angle is different, but yet sometimes I can. I had trouble imaginging the black fairy recently
Re: Imagination - sean - 10-21-2010
because I was very tired and yet yesterday I said to myself, to hell with the imagination chore, I'll just look out the window, and hey presto the sign cleared up completely. It frustratingly muddled in a way. But then, I saw the sign. And whenever I had a medical I used to take out the contact lenses and say: A, I can't see it but I saw it when I walked in here, like I just told you. And they'd just look at me and write something down and I'd put the contacts back in.
I want to get into the looking at detail thing. I find that the thinking of a point exercise in the exercises section seems to lend itself here very well. Instead of thinking of a period you think of a tiny speck in palming position. For me 5 secs, 5 secs with the eyes just closed, 3 secs or so looking at the clear blue sky and then onto the sign, let the eyes wander over it, looking to see if you can see the speck, lightly does it, don't don't don't try and take the whole sign in and hey presto there's your sign!
I asked if anyone else wanted to try it out but I don't think anyone has (yet). I think the discussion moved to similar exercises, which aren't quite the same really. See, everyone's at it! You can't get away from it! Heading back into stream of consciousness mode again...
Go on, go on, go on... if you haven't tried the imagination as I suggested, even in front of the mirror, just give it 5 mins and get back. I'm away for some days but I'll be back to see what's goin' on.
Re: Imagination - hammer - 10-21-2010
The fairy imagination is too complicated for me yet so I instead just found out something more simple to imagine.
I got the idea to imagine a white dice with black dots on it.
So for instance I focus on such a dot and shift to next dot and so on.
Also for instance I focus on a corner of the dice and shift to next corner (3D shifting).
I tried out my dice imagination idea this evening, I imagined a dice on the table in front of my TV.
I looked at the details of the imagined dice on the table for maybe a minute and then shifted focus to the TV again,
and then I actually noticed that I saw a lot better when I watched the TV afterwards.
Regarding fairies, well I am at least impressed that people can draw such incredible beautiful drawings, for instance:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://zindy-zone.dk/html/drawings/drawings.php">http://zindy-zone.dk/html/drawings/drawings.php</a><!-- m -->
Re: Imagination - Pikachu - 10-21-2010
@sean: Are you referring to the "finding details" thread started by David when you talk about "focusing on a point"? At the risk of sounding uninformed, I'll honestly admit that I thought the two were synonymous. And you're right: It does help a lot, albeit only for a brief period of time. I suspect that after this interval, the eyes revert back to the incorrect manner of seeing (resistance!). I could be wrong, but logically speaking, it would only be a matter of time before the eyes stopped reverting back and improved vision is permanent.
Should it interest you, here's a bit of what I do:
When I'm not doing much, I try focusing on a point. Thusfar, the best "point" has been this sort of scar on my hand. I don't know what to call it, but it's kind of like a black crumb or something and it's barely noticeable. In fact, I didn't even realize that it was on my hand until I decided that I was looking for details and focused on my hand! Anyway, what I do is I hold my left hand (the one with the dot) in my right hand and focus on the dot. I try to relax while at the same time looking for details which sounds very paradoxical I might add. After a while, a blur sets in on the outside and I sort of...control the blur to make sure that the periphery is blurred slightly but that the center is not (sometimes my eyelids drop a bit which gives the extra blur which I don't want). After I decide that I'm done or need a break (anywhere from 1-10 minutes), I look up and look around. My vision is a little bit better than before, but only for a few seconds (I'd say 10 seconds). I also have noticed that the color red is much stronger right after I finish this exercise.
With farther away objects, I try to imagine just one blurred dot on the object I'm looking at and try to apply the same strategy mentioned above. I tried it for the first time today and got mixed results. It worked at first, but subsequent tries weren't as successful, either because the objects in question were too blurred (I changed objects) or because I was trying too hard.
I'm also trying this with palming, although I really don't have a lot of time devoted to palming, so it's still in the experimental stage.
By the way, 10 minutes is a LONG time!
I can totally relate with you there; it's difficult to focus on any one thing for even five minutes! I'm proud of myself every time I can swing for 30 minutes in the morning (which I did today ) or practice the point exercise for more than five minutes at a time. All I can say is that swinging is much easier once you understand that you don't need to focus too much on what you're looking at. You just have to lose yourself in the moment (sounds cheesy, doesn't it?). I like to think of a topic that interests me or recall memories.@hammer: Interesting idea with the dice. I might try it sometime.
Re: Imagination - sean - 10-22-2010
Hi hammer
I found the fairy too complicated at first so I had to get rid of the wings. I think I assembled her as a kind of Frankenstein's monster, presumably from images of stuff I remembered having seen at some time in the past. I hope she's not reading this!
No, it can't possibly matter what the object is, I just took the fairy as mine as I was being obtusely literal-minded at the time. I just found the having the fairy 'in situ', in a concrete situation, was all I could handle. If I imagine a black dot just in my mind's eye, not in any specific situation,that has a similar effect but not as strong perhaps. To tell you the truth, I have never taken the time to try and see if it would work just as well (slap on wrists), I must have had something more 'pressing' to do.
The talking bit (and I hope she doesn't mind me discussing her behind her back) seemed to be natural for me because I know that unless I was making a specific commitment to really relax and 'try' to see her I'd just do some kind of routine, formulaic thing where I won't really do it properly, but feel I'd done my duty. As I say, when I just can't do it she might oblige by waving her wand and the bright light on the end catches my attention, and I can 'remember' my way into the situation. The situatoin is 'real', she is there in 'real time', so it's just like remembering my kitchen table, as if I was looking at it there and then, and she's there. My house is just round the corner from work and I'd sometimes do this as I'm walking home, but if I'm facing towards the house I don't like imagining her in the kitchen because I know she's not really, so I just think of her on my office desk. She only really says two things to me: stop talking and look at me, that's all you have to do. The white fairy is usually on the side lines and says you are a men in the voice of the girl from High Noon. I dunno where that came from but it amuses me... I think I've just given part of my mind the job of making sure I don't wriggle out of doing this.
Re: Imagination - sean - 10-22-2010
Pikachu
First sentence: yes you're right, I think I mixed them up. And you're also right about just helping for a short time. I find it a handy booster say when I'm watching football on tv and I can't see anything. This will often, not always, clear the picture up to some degree, for a period, then it's back again. And so on. But when I look back to where I was a year ago there is a big improvement and no mistake. I often have the tingling effect in my eyes (relaxation) even if there's no obvious difference in clarity. When I first started out 3 and a half years ago it took months before I even first had that feeling, where I just relaxed properly (you know when you are beginning you are straining to relax and it's not relaxation at all of course, but it comes in the end to everyone) and I felt this noticeable difference in the eyes. And the watering which was annoying because it was getting in the way of seeing the improved vision. In fact I was terrified I'd never be able to 'find the feeling' again and looked for the feeling where the eyes were watering because, although it's a nuisance, then I'd know I was on the right path. I think Dave might have thought I meant making your eyes water, which is wrong of course, this was just looking for the evidence that I was doing something right. So things have moved on hugely from there.
I see you are devoting time to this regularly and that will definitely pay off. Interesting where you talk about controlling the blur. Before I did this fairy thing (what would the neighbours think?) I used to just relax in front of my home made A4 Snellen in the office (what did my colleagues think? they never passed comment!) and empty my mind and pass my eyes gently over the letters. They'd always clear a small bit but to get beyond that took a lot of time, say half an hour. When the occasional clear flash came I'd have the same feeling of discomfort as in this fairy imagination. Exactly the same, like you are losing control of things, you want to let go but you won't and this 'battle' gives rise to the discomfort. That's what I mean by a mental discomfort.
Re: Imagination - sean - 10-22-2010
I can't remember with the Snellen exercise, but with 'imagining a fairy while my eyes are resting over a blurry sign' exercise before a full 20/20 clear flash comes you'd get the discomfort and the strong blur dissolves into a much fuzzier blur for a second. (What happens with me is: look out of window and see nearly blank wall; look at it and start imagining: much stronger blur immediately when you can often almost read it; approach clear flash: discomfort, some conflict about letting go (probably natrual as you are imagining something different from what you are looking at, which is suppose my big concern about this, but it worked); clear flash; back to where you started; or occasionally: clear flash; continuouslyimagine black dot and retain significantly clearer vision for a longer period. But it always felt somehow more comfortable to return to the blur.
This is all by long-winded build up to saying that when I used to look at the Snellen, the blur would clear a small bit and I used to try to manipulate it into something clearer. (I should have said this in my earlier posts - I wrote them at speed but had all the elements carefully assembled in my mind before launching into it, but I forgot this important bit.)
Don't do this. Don't manipulate the blur. It doesn't work. Leave the blur alone. Remember it is a scattering of tiny focused elements as Dave said. It doesn't need to be interfered with at all. If you are imagining something keep bringing your attnetion back to what you are imagining. (I find that usually I can just do this in successive small snatches.)
Of course I might have misunderstood your point, but it reminded me of making this crucial point. I really don't have much of value to impart to anyone, but that's one thing I have learned from bitter experience!
Anyway, with the looking at detail thread there now all this stuff might be redundant with luck.
Re: Imagination - sean - 10-22-2010
Hey Pikachu
When I say 'manipulate', I mean trying to force the blur into the desired shape. I think Dave's looking at detail is a way of interpreting the blur, of using the imagination. I'm not all that sure what the difference is, but manipulating it is to my mind a straining. Searching for detail, from my extremely limited experience so far, is looking at the blur, at a small part and seeking to make sense of it, to see it in short. (So far, for me, the imaginative element - you know where he talks about Bates looking at the black bits of the picture and imagining them as tiny caves with people moving around inside them - just seems to be taking care of itself, perhaps I'm doing it wrong.) It's a leap of faith and I think your imganitation simply responds to interested attention by supplying the image. Manipulating the blur is not a leap of faith but the opposite as you are trying to control the blurred image, you are starting with the image and trying to interfere with it. I think Dave is saying that the only thing our minds should be in control of is the part of seeing which involves using our attention to detail, the desire to see the detail and the searching for it. The rest is done automatically by the visual system and any attempt to interfere here, say by trying to manipulate the image, only gets in the way. It's like the centre forward coming back to help out in defence and getting in the way and giving away a penalty when he should be sticking to what he knows best?
Re: Imagination - Pikachu - 10-23-2010
@sean: I get what you're talking about. That's the reason why I gave up my previous shifting exercise; I was kind of trying to force it to be clearer, whether consciously or not. Sometimes, I notice that my eyes are straining, as if in anticipation of clearer vision. This is when I realized that I'm subconsciously trying to bring about clearer vision forcefully, which doesn't work. So I stopped.
And you mentioned that it was mental discomfort, which is clearly different than physical discomfort. That shouldn't be bad (and might even be good!) as long as it doesn't lead to physical discomfort, and from what you tell me, it doesn't.
Re: Imagination - hammer - 10-24-2010
Sean: I've tried out to imagine a fairy now, after having started out with some simple dice imagination exercises earlier. I can actually imagine a fairy now, but I can only imagine it when I am relaxed and the result depends on how relaxed my mind is. Thus I can imagine a really beautiful fairy when I am really relaxed, and I can look at details of the fairy in my imagination. If I am stressed, not relaxed, tired, has too much to think about, or has a lot of strain in my mind then the result of my fairy imagination would certainly be a something more like a Frankensteins monster instead (as you said) or I cannot even imagine anything. So this fairy imagination is actually a test to check if my mind is relaxed and also how relaxed my mind is. COOOOL, thanx ! And does it work, yes. I did a test this evening, I palmed and managed to imagine a beautiful fairy after quite long time actually while still palming, then I opened my eyes and I looked at a Snellens test chart that I have on my computer screen and I saw that I could read the bottom line easily there, a clear flash, when I blinked the clear flash remained. So it was definitely a temporary improvement of my eyesight. So I don't think imagination causes improved vision directly, instead it is the relaxation of the mind that causes improved vision, and thus you check the status of your mind with the imagination. I think though that imagination is beneficial for me regarding 3D awareness. When I look at details it is important for me to get the 3D awareness, and I imagine the 3d awareness out of I guess the subconscious memory I guess. Because I have trouble to synchronise my eyes and when the eyes are not synchronised the imagination of the 3D effect can be the trigger needed to get locked, to get synchronisation. So this means that I will not exercise trying to imagine things and so on, no dice exercises thus anylonger for me. Instead I will relax with I guess palming or something else, looking at details like Dave described is also very relaxing, and just check the status of my mind with trying to imagine a fairy maybe, because it was actually quite cool to imagine a fairy.
Re: Imagination - sean - 11-05-2010
Hammer
Yes, I often think the same, that the imagination exercise is a good way to see how relaxed you are, or more, a way of guiding yourself to relaxation, because in my case it isn't that easy always to know how relaxed you are. But there's also some dynamic at work that brings about clear vision and when I have done this consistently the vision has improved more lastingly. For anyone new to this thread, the fairy bit is of course not the essential thing: imagining any object does the job. But I do find that having a 'living' fairy (I know this sound sooo daft) is important, in my case anyway, as otherwise I'd be inclined to go through the form of the exercise without really doing the imagination bit. I mean, I'd be thinking about imagining the fairy/ object rather than actually imagining it - it's very easy to fall into that trap, and there's a part of me that wants me to fall into that trap. I imagine her telling me to look at her, and encouraging me, and that makes a big difference - in my case. For me, it's an open-eye exercise, and sometimes it's quite easy and other times near impossible, for the reasons you state. As I said in a post a year ago or so, Bates' book can appear to the modern reader like science fiction, or fantasy and you think: yeah, this happened and that happenend, and the patient saw the letter c, and looked out across the River Hudson at the cars on the far bank and read their number plates, or whatever, and maybe it did happen as he says, and maybe not quite, but what's that got to do with me?! And then you try this and you thinK: wow! Anyway, like yourself I'm getting into this looking for detail method now, and I've learned about imagination and I can see what it can do.