This is mainly addressed to people with perfect or near perfect sight. Say you've practiced the Bates method to its limits and have the best sight possible. Are there times where it is still hard to see, like driving at night with headlights in your face, glare from the computer screen, etc. ?
Bates says vision fluxuates: clear, less clear, always back to clear, if you stay away from glasses, squinting, staring, poor diet.
Bates Method strengthens that natural ability to fluxuate back to clear and keeps vision above average clarity so fluxuations are less often, less unclear, last a short time.
Yes, every time I read a Bates experience where he said a patient had a permanent cure, I filter it through my own experience of my vision fluxuating with my emotional state, fatigue, etc. We are not machines -- I think the key is to know how to get the clarity back when you lose it, i.e. relax.
Next week I'll be taking an Eyebody workshop with Peter Grunwald, & I saw the woman who'll be helping him with it recently for an Alexander lesson. She's traveled with Peter in foreign cities where he gives workshops & said yes, he can see fine (he used to wear -10.50 glasses), but she's also seen him lose acuity when he gets tired or hungry. This made her want to learn from him more, not less. I can't wait to meet this guy & soak up his wisdom in person.
Somehow I don't see how going from static good sight with glasses to unstable maybe-good-maybe-bad sight is exciting and beneficial. To me, unless the Bates method equals or surpasses glasses, it's not worth it.
People who wear glasses have their vision fluctuate too. It's just that their state of strain is so familiar they don't even notice this. (I used to be one of these people.) If it fluctuates too much they often just get stronger glasses, which locks in the straining pattern ever more tightly. If you go without glasses for a few hours, pay attention to the strain in your body when you put them back on -- you're carrying that around all the time you're wearing them.
Also, you do NOT have "static good sight" with glasses -- your periphery is cut off & your depth perception seriously compromised, not to mention your awareness of color.
The best way to see these kinds of things is to go without glasses for a while & notice things, including how you feel as well as what you see. Then put them back on & notice again. For me colors are duller, scenes look flat, & my temples ache, even in my weakest pair. Also, if I look out a partially open window, no matter how clean it is, colors are more muted through the window glass than when I look through the screen mesh. And this isn't even a prescription, just plane glass!
I noticed these things in first two weeks after started going without glasses/(contacts in my case):
- Brighter colors
- Better depth perception
- Stronger contrasts
- Bigger shyiness of bright surfaces
- head lighter
- better periferal awareness
- in driving (at that time I was using glasses, just for driving, and before I had contact lenses, but even with them) I felt more confident; I was easier changing my point of looking: road, mirrors, moving head left - right, metter board
- improved balance (with contacts on I would have feeling like I am falling if I watch train moving along the platform, going down/up stairs; I had semi-hard contacts, and probably dry eyes)
- the view in front of me was softer
- like the gray curtain was lifted up
- i felt as a part of this world, while with eyeware on I was feeling as separate from the rest of the world, which I am just looking at, not being involved
- I got my energy levels back, although it might be mostly due to contacts and dry eyes
I hope this can give you a general idea.
Also, when having in mind there is a link between vision and mind, there might be other things that become problems:
- focusing in your work is harder; one may be achieving, but with lots of effort
- it might be short term achievements; like one forgets the topic very soon after the exam
- lack of imagination; it shows in having new ideas, problem solving, etc.
- or with other words, Dr. Bates' words, lack of central fixation of the mind
- you don't remember persons color of the hair or eyes, or what are they wearing, not remembering faces
- can affect scanning abilities
- you might be reading slower or not understanding what you've just read so you go back again, ....
I learnt this initially from Janet Goodrich's books, some other teachers are supporting this and some of the things I can see are improving with me although it is more subtle to notice in yourself.
I remember our older people always saying not to look thru someone elses glasses, saying "You will ruin your eyes", which I was ignoring before because I didn't understand (and I think noone did, they just felt pain), but now I am saying it too.
