+- 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: pure Bates method (/showthread.php?tid=1667)
Re: pure Bates method - johnwayne - 12-01-2010
lordofthesun Wrote:I agree 100% with Clark message.
It is just simple to understand, so many words for something pretty simple... I think David's article is not misleading any Bates' aspect, if someone want to go into more depth about Bates things, that person can look for it for free at Bates' original writings. that said. Stop criticize, I wll be giving my feedback about it soon.
lord.
Lord of the Sun,
Re-read Oleg's reply carefully and you'll see how Bates and David's approach differs. Bates does not say to keep looking at a single letter that's so blurry you can see it but can't read it. It's not a good approach for beginners and it's going to cause them eyestrain. The reason Clark, David and others can do it is because they unconsciously know how to do small shifts; they've practised it before. A beginner can't to that.
The problem with asking people to be 'aware' or 'look for' details, as I understand it, is that you will loose the periphery. Smaller areas will clear up, because the shifts of the eye become smaller, but at the cost of tuning out peripheral vision. When you notice, however, that you see a detail for example worse than when you are not looking directly at it; for example, if you notice that the top of the the letter 'i' looks worse when you look at the bottom of it, then vision improves not just for details but for the periphery also.
The whole point of gaining central fixation is to notice that objects not regarded look worse than those that are. It's got nothing to do with searching for smaller details. It's true that the smaller the distance between details that this difference in clarity is noted will increase relaxation and hence improve central fixation. It's just that central fixation doesn't mean being able to see details better. It means seeing the entire field of vision better, because with normal vision, everything looks equally clear at once unless you make yourself consciously aware of how we only see one point best at a time.
I realise I might be coming across as a pompous know-it-all, and I apologise if that's the case. I just really don't want people to make the same errors I have continually made in the past.
Cheers, JW
Re: pure Bates method - johnwayne - 12-01-2010
clarknight Wrote:that my eyes stayed relaxed because they continued to move on that part, seeking details (points) within the blur. I practiced this on my Natural Vision Improvement Astigmaitsm wheel chart.
All lines on the chart cleared including the astigmatism angles! Both eyes astigmatism and blur cleared and remained clear as time went on and sinus better, neck healing with Osteopath. To me, David is just making it simple, easy to do shifting and central fixation. Many times I must type directions a few different ways in E-mails before a reader understands.
Clark
Hi Clark,
If nothing else your experience proves Dave's method can work well in the right circumstances. I just don't think most beginners will get the same benefit you did, if they start out looking at single letters as blurry as David suggests, for the same time period. For most people, whenever they see blur they instantly start straining more; it's as if it's an automatic reaction. That's why Bates recommended doing things like flashing the chart, etc. (all the stuff you know doubt know).
Could it be that a blurry object itself somehow 'guides' or 'trains' the eye to make the necessary small shifts necessary to see it, without any conscious intention for the person? Therefore, the shifts of the eye become automatic and effortless. The key, in my view, is getting the object - it could be a letter of an eyechart or anything else - at the right distance, because if it's too far, it will cause strain, and if it's too close, it won't be blurry enough to have the right effect.
When seen in this light, it would seem that Dave's and Bate's method are one and the same. It would be nice if there was a way reconcile the two methods better, though. Anyone up for that? I'd like to be onboard with what Dave's trying to achieve with this, because I have to admit, the direction of the forum's really lost me completely of late.
Cheers, JW
Re: pure Bates method - JMartinC4 - 12-01-2010
Andrea Major Wrote:OK, then what do you exactly believe in? >Okay, here is what I now believe:
Everyone on this website who has uncontrollable nearpoint fixation disorder (so-called 'myopia' which simply comes from the ancient Greek for 'closed eye') - has developed a habit of using pseudo foveas when looking into the distance. These pseudo foveas provide a varying amount of blurry vision (depending on how far they are located from the true foveas). The varying distance results in one eye with worse vision (more blurriness) than the other eye. Also, since the pseudo foveas are not symmetrically located relative to the true foveas (which are by nature symmetrically located on the retinas), the two eyes distance' input cannot [easily] be unified into one binocular stereoscopic image. I believe this is a problem which Dr. Bates did not see much of, because I believe it is usually a direct result of the incorrect instillation or follow-up procedures of neonatal eye antibiotics within 60 minutes of every baby's birth in any hospital in America and probably most hospitals world-wide. That procedure did not become a legislatively-mandated standard operating procedure until the 1930s and therefore post-dates Dr. Bates' practice. I believe that in accordance with Freudian principles, without an understanding and acceptance of these facts, none of us can purposefully change our habits and redevelop our visual system so that we use our true foveas all the time. Without using our true foveas all the time we cannot have permanently clear distance vision.
Re: pure Bates method - johnwayne - 12-01-2010
clarknight Wrote:When I look at the blur, I shift point to point on it, looking for details in the blur and it turns the blurry letter into darker, darker, clear flashes, can then can see the letter dark black clear and the white page pure clear white, no blurry grey on the white or black. Eyes dont have to stay on one part, letter, but the eyes can do it if you want, with relaxation.
The eye normally moves away from a point, part then returns to it if the person wants to continue seeing it. Blink, drift into relaxation with no effort to see.
That's very well described, thank you Clark. Nice and simple for blockheads like me to understand
Cheers, JW
Re: pure Bates method - Andrea Major - 12-03-2010
Hi Everyone,
I feel like I owe it to everyone to come back and respond with greater detail, because there have been so many good points made and I guess I have started all this mess. I hate to be the one who always disagrees on this site, but I guess I am becoming that person on this forum :-). I am now thinking about changing my login name to something like the "Bates Police" or the "Bates Enforcer" Ha-ha! Anyhow, the biggest problem with Dr. Bates is that he is dead and he cannot defend his method.
To Oleg K.:
Thanks for expressing much better what I wanted to say but didn't quite have the words for or even the ideas formed in my head. Bates did say that people do better who don't spend time making up their own theories and I have to agree after so many of my own theories I have found wrong.
By the way, where do you meet those people who use those true Bates' advocates? I would like to meet them, too! :-) Yeah there are a lot of stuff on this website, for a website dedicated to the Bates Method it is very confusing. But I am good at learning from others mistakes!
David:
I think people do need to know the truth, the whole truth. You cannot treat people otherwise at this day and age. Even if they have some success with your looking for details, the first time they make a trip to the optometrist, they will be discouraged from doing it any further and will go back to their glasses. Even friends and relatives who think they know something about optics can easily discourage someone. Only people who are very committed and are willing to read a few hundred pages, only those will succeed. They have to be analytical, sceptical, curious and intelligent. (They must see what is out there, that there is no evidence against what Bates has said, but there are plenty of evidences against conventional opthalmology.) Others, without the culture of vision education in families, schools, dr's, etc (a utopia of the BEM's), have no chance. It is sad but I believe it is true.
I have spent the first 6 months on research and found no conclusive evidence against the Bates Method. Even if someone reads Wikipedia, the fine print about the clear flashes, basically there is no explanation for them. There cannot be one, since the eyeball is supposed to be out of shape and that's it. And anyway, anyone can write stupid things on Wikipedia...
My other issue with the looking for detail, the new Welcome page is that it simply cannot work. People giving positive feedback are not new to the method. In every instance, I read that they have added some other Bates principles, such as relaxation or shifting of which a newcomer would have no idea about. It is just not possible to convey it in such short introduction and I wouldn't even try if I were you.
The other issue is that Bates teaches to avoid looking at an image that isn't seen well. When they treat a patient at the clinic, they make sure that the patient does not look at the Snellen until it becomes blurry.
A scattered image is nothing but a combination of a blurry image and polyopia. Polyopia is caused by another strain but it is still a strain. It is a good demonstration, however, to the fluidity of vision, which is supposed to prove to a person that optometry is a lie, but trust me, people will not even be able to make that conclusion since they either don't know enough about their own condition, or if they know, they will be too closed minded to come to the right conclusion. Even my own father who was a genious, could not reconcile his polyopia with the accepted theories (he thought me some about optics) so he came up with the idea that his lens must have been shattered :-).
Yes, about the people swinging their heads or moving their eyes all the time. I used to be one of them :-). Well it was a good demonstration in the beginning. However, Bates never said that we should go through our lives doing it. It is a sign of relaxation, which will come naturally eventually. For me, after many months, I found that I can have my improved vision and just give it a boost by doing 4-6 shifts on some details once in a while. This was not possible in the beginning, because I didn't have enough relaxation or mental control. As I improve, I remind myself that none of the steps I can do now were possible before, no matter how easy they seem now, it is a gradual evolution, which takes place mostly subconconsciously. Dave, you, yourself must have done a great amount of shifting and palming before (based on your past notes, exercise descriptions.) I wonder if you now believe that all that was just a waste of time? Like you could have skipped the palming and just do what you recommend on the new "Method Explained" area?
About recommending using a professional Snellen. I would refrain from that because so many people esp. with long-standing vision troubles will find the Snellen a pessimum. (Because all it reminds me of is an awful encounter with the optometrist.) Instead, personally I use anything, like colourful flyiers, which we get truckloads of in the mail, etc. One can make anything pretty much in this world on their high quality laser printers, which now probably everyone has access to. In Bates's time, printed material wasn't so easy to get so he was using his own Snellen.
What I would wonder about, David, is what were your reasons for changing the site? What is it that frustrated you with the method personally or the people who you know and practice it?
JMartinC4:
That I am a pedant, that's flattering to me. Oh I am so far from it! Did I tell you that I made a mistake before and thought I could just do whatever and my vision would improve? Well, it didn't. Now, I am trying something different and surprise! it is working! I should do better though and I am sure everyone else could. I don't have time to pussyfoot around this time. I have a 2 year old son, I want to be a good example and not infect him with my strained vision and overall behaviour. I have given a deadline to myself, which is: work as hard at it as I can at least until he goes to school. I am a sceptic though. As I said I searched for 6 months and even before for evidence that would contradict him, what I found was shocking signs that Bates is still the future! He talked about emmetropization (the process of continuously changing refractive state in children in the first at least 4 years of life, which now the idiots (so-called experts) are beginning to be aware of and yet they continue to allow the practice of fitting toddlers with glasses! What a crime against our children! And the latest studies showing that children exposed to daylight are less likely to need glasses, because (Bates) it is impossible to look at the sun without perfect sight. I have no idea what pseudo fovea means but it sounds fancy. Could you please put it into Bates terms, which I understand?
To Pikachu and JW and all:
I am taking the extremist approach to live without glasses, despite the worse than -6 overall compound myopia which I started with. My rules are: no glasses are allowed in my house. (period) No exceptions. I parked them permanently in my car. I don't watch tv, but I read a lot. Mostly printed material because that feels better. I work with a laptop and I get really close to it. It used to be less than 6 inches, now it is usually 10 or better! A huge improvement, which wouldn't have happened if I left those glasses on! Wearing glasses keeps you under strain. You only fool yourself if you think there is no strain while wearing them. The conscious strain, which you get by leaning close to things is beneficial to you. It, first of all, helps you become conscious of the strain that glasses have been giving to you and you by effort learned to supress but is making your life miserable; and it is a motivator to spend more time doing the exercises! I would rather have a backache than go blind and be stressed. I can do physically anything to my eyes and body, I have great flexibility, I used to be a dancer and I swim, and probably older than most of you! :-) Remember, nothing physical will destroy the sight, only stress will. And for driving, after 6 months I figured out a new prescription for myself, and convinced an optometrist to give it to me. I am not proud of the driving part though. Bates would never recommend anyone to drive, (with or without glasses!!) who have any kind of visual defect, because we don't have the mental control to act appropriately in an emergency! That being said, I work very far from home and there is no public transportation where I live. For now, I am going to try to succeed while driving with some glasses on, but I am sure would do better, faster if I could make different life choices in the matter and forget driving for a while.
It is difficult for me to believe that anything that Bates has said was incorrect. Even the most crazy-sounding stuff, I have found them to be exactly true in my case. If he was wrong about the oblique muscles doing all the accomodation, then I don't understand how my eyes can improve. My optometrist doesn't understand either :-)
But I am keeping my ears open, if you find any conclusive evidence against him, please point me to it, so I can stop wasting my time with it since I am only developing a 6th sense in that case, since the eyes should obviously be doomed without hope. Interestingly even according to the autorefractor, my eyes have improved...
Re: pure Bates method - Pikachu - 12-03-2010
@Andrea Major: I think that the choice of using glasses is a personal one. Obviously, it is best for they eyes to go without and those who choose to continue to wear glasses even occasionally (like myself) should realize that the glasses cause, to some extent, strain on the eyes. I get that. That said, it's not impossible to improve eyesight with glasses, as some people have proven; it's just more difficult. You seem not to be worried at all about the physical pain that can come from going without glasses. For me, I'd rather not chance getting any kind of physical condition.
By the way, what does "-6 overall with compound myopia" mean? Are you adding the refraction with the astigmatism?
Re: pure Bates method - johnwayne - 12-04-2010
Hi Andrea,
I wrote a pretty lengthy response, but unfortunately what I wrote got wiped so I'll keep it brief. I do believe the eyeball can change shape, but I don't think it's achieved by the external muscles pressing on the eyeballs, at least in most people. Have you read wrote Robert Lichtman wrote in his article 'Myopia as Adaption' (on
Quote:www.effortlessvision.com)? I think that article explains how the eyes change their shape.
I think it's best not to wear any glasses, only at times when one will actually strains their eyes more without the glasses than they would with them. An example would be a school kid trying to see the black board, or when someone is driving. In both cases, the person is having to look into the distance alot and there's a lot of potential for strain to occur.
Cheers, JW
Re: pure Bates method - seetheleaves - 12-05-2010
Quote:I am now thinking about changing my login name to something like the "Bates Police" or the "Bates Enforcer"
Haha! ;D
Quote:People giving positive feedback are not new to the method. In every instance, I read that they have added some other Bates principles, such as relaxation or shifting of which a newcomer would have no idea about.I would count myself on this side of the argument. While looking for details has been an extremely beneficial step in my process of relearning how to see, I needed to start with the Basic Bates Method exercises to get into a state of enough relaxation in order to have the right focus of mind. Shifting, swinging, palming - they form the basis of mechanical relaxation. I don't have to analyze what I'm doing or why, I just follow the instructions and my eyes are led into a relaxed state. THEN I am able to approach looking for details with enough mental control to stick to it, to understand it further, and to recognize its benefit in the gradual process of learning how to see correctly. It's my impression that most of us here are goal-oriented by nature and I'm afraid that diving sraight into 'looking for details' feeds that goal-orientation in a beginner. For me, Bates Exercises removed that pressure.
Quote:Yes, about the people swinging their heads or moving their eyes all the time. I used to be one of them :-). Well it was a good demonstration in the beginning. However, Bates never said that we should go through our lives doing it. It is a sign of relaxation, which will come naturally eventually. For me, after many months, I found that I can have my improved vision and just give it a boost by doing 4-6 shifts on some details once in a while. This was not possible in the beginning, because I didn't have enough relaxation or mental control. As I improve, I remind myself that none of the steps I can do now were possible before, no matter how easy they seem now, it is a gradual evolution, which takes place mostly subconconsciously.
I was one of those people too
but I had to go through that. It was all so overwhelming in the beginning, so many new ideas of how to see. The primary thing I had to understand in the beginning was the difference betweeing staring and shifting. Without learning shifting I never would have recognized the primary thing that I was doing wrong. It was jolty, it was awkward - it was like a child learning to walk, but I had to go through that stage. Now when I approach looking for details I employ all of what I have learned leading up to that. I'm thankful that I had that basis otherwise I do think I would have been confused or frustrated. It is enlightening to look forward towards where David is now and incorporate his insights into my process. I do feel that it gets me further faster. And I do feel that looking for details will be how I ultimately see all of the time. Whether I could have skipped everything else and gone straight to looking for details is a question I can't answer - have there been any newbies to try this out yet? It would be beneficial to hear a beginner's experience with this.
Re: pure Bates method - Nancy - 12-05-2010
This is well-said. I agree that my initial level of anxiety and strain when I started NVI made me approach everything, including Bates work, in a goal-oriented way. I'm convinced now that's why my initial progress was slow and frustrating, but back then it was so much a way of life I didn't even recognize it. I didn't do the eye chart for years because I couldn't see it! I'm not sure if it was Bates work alone that lowered my stress level to the point that I could benefit from the "looking for details" method -- it might also have been the regular massage and chiropractic work I get, the Alexander Technique training, the frequent journaling and meditation I do. Of course now I can benefit more from my Bates work too. I'm beginning to think we need some kind of stress/strain measurement to know how to teach students, because if it's low the "looking for details" method would work, otherwise the first goal is to lower their strain, and only then this method would be helpful.
Seetheleaves, thanks -- it's nice to have my experience validated.
Re: pure Bates method - JMartinC4 - 12-05-2010
Quote:AndreaMajor wrote: JMartinC4:... I am trying something different and surprise! it is working! I should do better though and I am sure everyone else could. I don't have time to pussyfoot around this time. I have a 2 year old son, I want to be a good example and not infect him with my strained vision and overall behaviour. I have given a deadline to myself, which is: work as hard at it as I can at least until he goes to school. I am a sceptic though. As I said I searched for 6 months and even before for evidence that would contradict him, what I found was shocking signs that Bates is still the future! He talked about emmetropization (the process of continuously changing refractive state in children in the first at least 4 years of life, which now the idiots (so-called experts) are beginning to be aware of and yet they continue to allow the practice of fitting toddlers with glasses! What a crime against our children! And the latest studies showing that children exposed to daylight are less likely to need glasses, because (Bates) it is impossible to look at the sun without perfect sight. I have no idea what pseudo fovea means but it sounds fancy. Could you please put it into Bates terms, which I understand?As mentioned in previous posts, I found the 'pseudo fovea' in clarknights' recents posts on a book she had found by a psychology investigator on eye movements, Dr. Yarbus, which discusses how people who had normal vision but became partially blinded and unable to use their true foveas, will begin focusing incoming light onto the retina in a way similar to the normal focus onto the foveas, but on other usable (but incapable of detailed distance discrimination) areas of the retina - which lets them maintain vision which is blurry (the further from the true foveas the blurrier) but better than no vision at all.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/yarbus%20(1967">http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/yarbus%20(1967</a><!-- m -->)%20eye%20movements%20and%20vision.pdf
I am beginning to develop a set of questions that need answering. Myself, my older brother, my wife, and others born before 1956, have begun confirming for me what I suspect to be very true of many if not all such nearsighted people: we cannot remember ever seeing clearly into the distance, and were surprised and delighted when we got our first lenses around the age of 11, and realized that what we thought was normal vision was in fact very blurry. I beileve Nancy has confirmed the same thing in her experience. Was that the case with you, Oleg, and any others here who were born before 1960?
Re: pure Bates method - Nancy - 12-05-2010
Quote:I beileve Nancy has confirmed the same thing in her experience.Please don't include me in this. Yes, I was born before 1960. I got glasses at age 5 and my mother said I probably needed them at age 3. (She's said my pupils were always huge, which I think is because I was frightened.) I have a single memory from about age 2 or a bit earlier, then no other memories at all until age 5 or 6 -- I'm not kidding. In this one early memory I could see my mother bending over me, the sidewalk I was standing on, and the nearby grass. I have no way of knowing how clearly I was seeing. I also have no memory of my first pair of glasses or the first few eye doctor visits, and whether I could see more clearly or not. I've blocked it all out, I guess. I do remember getting new glasses at about age 11 which must have had an increased astigmatism correction, because when I put them on the hallway walls curved around me and made me dizzy. Of course I was told "You'll get used to it".
Re: pure Bates method - JMartinC4 - 12-06-2010
Okay, thanks for the note.
Next question: My older sister, older brother, my wife, and I were each born in different hospitals and different cities (Albion, Dowegiac, Midland, Moscow Idaho) and left shortly after, probably never returning to the place we were born for any followups.
I'm thinking kids like us, whose neonatal eye antibiotics weren't done correctly or needed followup, were forced to develop stronger than normal internal mental focus because of the loss of external visual focus forced on us by the incorrect 'treatments', and then prolonged by the incorrect or missing 'followup treatment'. There is something missing for us in those hospitals and cities - either sounds or people or treatments or memories or somethings. My two sons' experience is similar. My younger sister's two sons were born and raised in the same small town in Michigan - and they have 'normal' eyesight.
So, Question 2: If nearsighted from birth, how many of us were born and raised in the same town and returned to the same hospital for other/followup visits?
I'm not ruling out the many and varied other factors that could have gone into the non-development of normal eyesight. But would like to check out these statistics.
Re: pure Bates method - David - 12-06-2010
The way Bates described it, the establishment in his day insisted that the last word on refractive errors had been spoken. He had to controvert the undisputed teachings of more than a century. Fellow eye doctors came across patients who didn't fit the established models, but they ignored that fact. They deferred to the authority of the textbooks and didn't want to think about what could be wrong with their models. They made virtually no effort to look at specific parts of his method to attempt to understand or to determine what parts are true or false, or which parts are useful or not, instead just dismissing the entire thing out of hand as quackery.
Now think about that. Should we be making the same type of mistakes as they did by declaring that Bates's writings of a century ago must be undisputed because of his vast experience and authority, or that the last word on the subject has been written, or not considering new ideas just because they aren't exactly how Bates described things? I don't see the point of repeating this cycle, jumping from one set of dogma to another. It bothers me that anyone would treat this as some kind of religion with teachings set in stone. I may be responsible for a good portion of that attitude, but if so, I'm going to do what I can to avoid it anymore. There was a poster on here a few years ago who had that attitude (Kazekage), and he made hundreds of posts, many of them negative towards anyone who didn't parrot Bates, until I finally found out that he was the same guy in disguise who had caused such problems elsewhere several years back with his over-zealousness.
Bates had to do what he did with very little help, and he had to invent his own ways of thinking about what he discovered, because he had virtually nobody else's work to build on or base his ideas off of. The concept of stress-related disorders only started coming to light 40 years ago, and other mind-body stuff hasn't been popular all that long either. So we have much more today in the way of information and modes of communication between a lot of involved people that make further development of these things possible. I'm not saying I personally have all the answers. If you're going to look at anything at all, you should be thinking about how to verify whether there's a way to use it to consistently improve your vision, and if not, what could be wrong. People do have moments of clearer vision and other such results that make it clear that there is something about what they're doing that's correct, but after a period of weeks, if what you're doing isn't still resulting in better and better vision, then there's something wrong with what you've understood, and you aren't entirely on the right track. The problem I have here is people spend years at this without enough success. It doesn't make sense to me that it should take that long when the right procedure is followed. Bates seemed to suggest that it could happen permanently in any instant, but realistically, making a neurological change in more than a very mild case takes longer than that. Bates never presented his method as a complete mode of therapy, and I'm not impressed by the results that most people are getting with it right now. That doesn't mean it's wrong - it's just not as complete as it could be, or not properly organized with the right procedure. We have such therapies today to help people learn to think or use their bodies correctly again after a brain injury or various diseases or disorders resulting in loss of use of various parts of the body. I see eyesight problems as toward the "easy" end of the spectrum.
Also, I suspect that very few people take this as a serious therapy that they need to spend hours at each day. I don't know much about other types of therapy, but it seems to me that they typically push a person to work on it as much as humanly possible, as many days a week as makes sense, not just to get quick results, but to keep up the momentum to get any results at all. If people spent more time at it, with complete attention to what they're doing, and if they aren't consistently improving, I think they could quickly come to the conclusion that they're missing something, and work to find that out. I just don't see much of that going on here. People seem to be satisfied with very slow, limited results, and they don't always seem to want to know why it isn't working so well. Why is that?
So the changes on the website represent the best thing I can come up with so far as a procedure to get people to change the way they see, and of course including what others have come up with that I think will fit in well. I realize that a few people may disagree with the way I see things. If the entire thing just turns you off to the point where you want to just throw up, then again, you're probably not going to like where things are headed. I suggest explaining specific changes you think need to be made, and why, or coming up with your own comprehensive procedure that approaches things from a different angle. I also suspect that not everyone has read it since the first draft a month ago and they don't realize that it has changed or will change. I like where it's going, but I know that the few upset people in any group are often the most vocal and so it can appear as if their opinions are the majority whether they are or not, so I thought it necessary to respond to that by making some points here.
Re: pure Bates method - Pikachu - 12-06-2010
^ I generally agree with that post. The only point in which I don't entirely agree with is the one about constant improvement. I believe that if the Bates method was to be "perfected", it would not be able to produce constant improvement, mainly because the refractions of the eyes are quite inconsistent, so the "best-case" would be sort of like a bullish stock market: it always trends up but there are brief periods where it evens out or even declines a bit.
I don't completely agree with the detail-searching idea, but what David mentioned here is something we all need to consider: Why is it that some people improve their eyesight much faster than others? What's the secret? Sure, most of Bates' ideas are fundamentally sound, but I think it would be ignorant of someone to say that he's right on ALL counts ALL the time. Was he a great man? Of course. But let us not be so quick to say that he was flawless.
Re: pure Bates method - seetheleaves - 12-07-2010
Hi David,
After posting here I went back and carefully reread the updates you made to the Method and my opinion is: great - I think we're on the right track - so long as newbies are being pointed towards Bates exercises as well as Looking for Details, I don't see any controversy. I was thinking about your reference to religious dogma and I believe this is an excellent comparison. I read alot of philosophy, have always been interested in comparative religion and metaphysics and I constantly ask myself the question: why does it seem like the End-Goal (Truth, Unity, Oneness, Awareness, Understanding etc. etc.) is consistently the same but the method for arriving there is as individual as every individual?? Why isn't there just one path?
But that's the answer, isn't it? Every singular individual has to take his own path towards the End-Goal (whatever he decides that to be). We all start from different beginnings, have been influenced by unique experiences, and have particular ways of viewing our world, our lives, ourselves. And a person who is seeking Truth will read and learn and open themselves to everything that assists them on their journey. They will adopt what helps them and after some trial, they will discard what doesn't. Openness is the difference between someone who seeks Truth and someone who seeks Religion.
What we are all doing with NVI is highly individualistic. Even when we are discussing the standard Bates Method you can read posts here about how certain exercises are the key for some people and seemingly useless for others. Some people excel with Palming, some people can't stand it. Same for the Snellen. Same for Swinging. The criticism for those exercises feels less harsh than for yours only because nobody is suggesting that we throw out Palming because it doesn't work for a couple of people. My belief is that we are all on this Forum in the first place because we are open to broadening our understanding of the Bates Method and of NVI in general. We are here to share our experiences and to listen to the helpful advice and experiences of others - to adopt what works and to discard what doesn't.
My favourite of your points above is:
David Wrote:We have such therapies today to help people learn to think or use their bodies correctly again after a brain injury or various diseases or disorders resulting in loss of use of various parts of the body. I see eyesight problems as toward the "easy" end of the spectrum.
Also, I suspect that very few people take this as a serious therapy that they need to spend hours at each day. I don't know much about other types of therapy, but it seems to me that they typically push a person to work on it as much as humanly possible, as many days a week as makes sense, not just to get quick results, but to keep up the momentum to get any results at all. If people spent more time at it, with complete attention to what they're doing, and if they aren't consistently improving, I think they could quickly come to the conclusion that they're missing something, and work to find that out. I just don't see much of that going on here. People seem to be satisfied with very slow, limited results, and they don't always seem to want to know why it isn't working so well. Why is that?
So, in the spirit of adding constructive suggestions my contribution is:
Let's commit to this as a type of physical therapy, no different from re-learning how to walk after a traumatic accident. Let's approach this the way physical therapy is approached - a set length of time, a standard set of exercises, a lifestyle change. You can't help but have your life changed when you can't walk - you are helpless to do what you used to do until you get your legs back. Many of us here - myself included - practice Bates 'when we can' / 'between work and life responsibilities' / 'when we remember to' - and this is all done in the hope of not putting pressure on ourselves / not causing further stress and strain / not making our vision worse. But if my eyes were my legs instead, you better believe I would be putting my entire life's effort into healing.
Would it be possible - for as many of us as are willing - to commit to a standardized therapy? An agreed-upon number of hours each day, every day for a set time-period? And during that time could we commit to practicing the following:
1) Bates Method
2) Looking for Details
3) Relaxation practices (yoga, meditation, qi gong, stretching - whatever works for the individual)
4) Recording our changes / Subjective experiences / What works / What doesn't work / How long before we saw improvement / What was the trigger for a clear flash / How do we feel when we have clear flashes
Many here are already doing this in open threads and on their blogs - but if we could all get together for one trial-period and compare what happens then we would have a common basis for continuing this discussion. I'm not suggesting a rigid scientific experiment. I'm only suggesting an agreed-upon commitment that we all contribute to.
I would love to see the patterns that could emerge from this - common feelings, common emotions, common visual illusions, common progress.
Thoughts?