I just posted a long post in my "breakthroughs" thread under the "David's Method" section of the forum, but I thought it would be relevant to give it a little plug under this section of the forum as well, since the materials are not strictly linked to David's Method. I did not want to double-post, so here's a brief abstract:
1. I describe some demonstrations that show, in a very concrete way, linkages between tension in the eyes and tensions in other body parts.
2. I describe how shifting practice is benefited by not only shifting attention among visual points in space, but also among feelings of pulling and pushing in other body parts, and alternating between thinking about points in visual space and thinking about feelings in the body.
These demonstrations have jumpstarted my progress tremendously and I want to share them with everybody and perhaps spark a discussion.
Sean,
Thanks for starting this discussion. I agree that tension in the body (often far from the face or eyes) is related to visual tension. About your noticing practice, I've heard several different energy healers talk about putting your attention on a body part that is hurting or tense, just watching it (no rubbing or poking), and the mere act of putting attention there causing a decrease in the tension.
I found the post quite interesting as well, and it follows some of the things I've noticed recently. I have found out that when I stare, besides the eyes, I tend to strain these areas as well: the cheeks, the jaws, the neck, and surprisingly, the legs too!
Here is a variation of David's method that incorporates the felt sense in other parts of the body. Adding awareness of physical sensations throughout the body makes David's method more effective for me. I can only speculate as to why, but it may have to do with the fact
that tensing other parts of the body is a crutch (a.k.a. secondary strain) we rely on for the feeling of security it gives us when we try to let go of the primary strain that makes our vision worse.
1. Sit comfortably, and remember the feeling of looking at something you ordinarily see well. One way to do this is to imagine (inside your head! don't try to paste it somewhere outside in the world) something you've seen well. This will probably mean that your vision becomes even more "defocused" and actually gets a little worse.
[Actually, you can entirely forget about this step, as step 2 (putting your attention on physical feelings) will naturally tend to put your eyes into this more relaxed state. The key thing is to have the courage to allow your vision to get worse, because what you ordinarily think of as "focusing" is actually putting extra strain onto your eyes. Only by having the courage to allow your vision to get worse temporarily will it be possible to release the primary strain in the subsequent steps.]
2. Let your attention drift to a body part and notice the sensations
there (this can be any sensation, including the feeling of weight or
pressure, cold or hot, tension, itchiness, tingling, etc.). If possible, put most of your attention on as specific a body part as possible (e.g., the tip of your left toe). This is the somatic version of "central fixation." If you are unable to and can only notice a more general body part (e.g., your whole left leg), don't worry about it -- over time, you'll be able to pay attention to more and more specific parts.
3. Within a few seconds, your attention will naturally want to wander
-- either to another body part or to a patch of color regarded. Let it wander! In the latter case, you will notice that your area of maximal attention will be over a more or less dispersed area -- evidence that you lack central fixation. (Extrapolating from personal experience by comparing times when I have better versus worse vision, I presume that for people with very good vision, the area of maximal attention will be a very small point.)
4. As soon as you notice yourself regarding a patch of color, put your attention back onto a physical sensation (step 2).
5. When your attention returns to a visual object, you will find that
it has naturally drifted to another object -- usually close to the previous one. (Don't worry about where the new object is: just let it
land on whatever your attention wants to land on).
6. Repeat steps 2-5.
You will find that your vision clears up dramatically after a few
minutes of doing this. At the same time, your area of maximal
attention will begin to land on smaller and smaller patches of color.
THINGS NOT TO DO:
1. When regarding a patch of color, do not try to "block out" the rest
of your visual field. Remember that MOST of your attention will be on
this patch of color, but a little bit of awareness will also be on the
rest of the visual field. Remember that central fixation does not mean paying attention to only one thing and blocking out everything else: it means being MOST aware of one thing and being somewhat less aware of everything else.
2. Let your attention land on whatever object it happens to land on.
Do not try to force it to land on a particular object.
3. Do NOT try to do anything with your eyes when you put your attention on a physical sensation in your body (e.g., gazing "inside your body" at that body part or otherwise moving your eyes to "try to bring about" that physical sensation). You may naturally have a tendency to do something with your eyes as you put your attention on a physical sensation, and if so, simply notice that you are doing so. Simply by noticing that you are doing this, the tendency will lessen and then eventually go away.
4. Make sure you are really noticing a physical sensation, not thinking about a body part in the abstract. For example, thinking about my toe in the abstract is very different to really noticing what I am feeling in my toe. Poor eyesight seems somehow related to not being physically "present" in favor of abstract ideas.
5. At the same time, do not try to force or manufacture a feeling that wasn't there previously. Simply notice.
6. If you find yourself starting to go into autopilot, stop and do something else. This is an exercise in mindfulness, and mindless
repeating steps 2-6 will yield you no benefits.
7. The reason why I have included so many things not to do is that there are a lot of ways to screw up and have this activity not work. There may be additional ways that I haven't thought of. If this activity does nothing for you, switch to doing something else, and when you return to it, really pay attention to what you're doing or think you need to do in order to feel "secure" and entertain the risk of letting go of that thing. I wish I could describe things more eloquently, but whenever I've failed with this activity, it has always been because I was doing something that I felt was necessary, and letting go of it always felt a little dangerous. Once you have the experience of letting it go, you'll see what I mean.
Hm, I read the book Open-Focus brain by Les Fehmi the other day, and it is quite interesting at least when it comes to vision.
The open focus is about paying attention to for instance a part of your body that is tensed or a feeling that causes tension, and when you "widen the focus" the tension or feeling will disappear. So it is a way to get rid of the cause of the tension (thus to get rid of the cause of the vision problems), and it is exactly what is needed in order to improve the vision.
Lets say now that you actually have a problem that you strain when you consciously try to shift around your eyes in narrow attention, ok, then that strain will get reduced if you widen your attention regarding space (both within your body and outside of your body). I think it is some kind of this phenomenom you are experiencing. What do you think ?
I will begin to just pay attention to space when I palm, and when I palm I will try to imagine things and let my eyes shift in an effortless way (still following Davids rules of good visual habits). Davids triangle method is useful because it makes it possible to involve the third point which is about distance in 3d space. It is exactly what you need in order to imagine space and that is exactly what you need to do in order to release the vision system.
I actually already have noticed that this improved my vision quite much (I tested it some weeks ago and I noticed that I could see faces at quite far away distance), but it requires a lot of palming exercise and I have still some way to go to get it permanent.
But, my saccadic eyemovements have become a lot more rapid and a lot more effortless, due to this training.
Sorry, I haven't read the book you mentioned, so I don't know enough about "open focus" to say anything either for or against it. Sounds interesting, though.
ANOTHER METHOD THAT WORKS REALLY WELL TO CAUSE A BIG RELEASE OF STRAIN:
1. For the following steps to work, your eyes must be as close to your "baseline" level of relaxation as you can get them: if you're nearsighted, look at something that's CLOSE ENOUGH THAT YOU ESSENTIALLY SEE IT PERFECTLY. Or look at a blank area of solid color.
2. Notice something in the periphery and form an INTENTION to shift to it, but without actually making the shift. Your eyes may make a little jump in anticipation. If you can see the optical swing (which you should, since you're looking at something that you see essentially perfectly), the swing may become wilder and more irregular. You'll have an urge to clamp down on this wild swinging and make it calm down -- resist this urge by going straight to step 3.
The point here is NOTICE WHAT IT IS YOU HAVE THE URGE TO DO as soon as you form the intention to shift.
3. Inhibit the movement that you have an urge to make. How? By distracting yourself: calm yourself down by immediately shifting your attention to a specific feeling in a body part outside your eyes, like your elbow or your toe, or some other part. Really notice this feeling, and do not give this step short shrift by only thinking about this body part in the abstract.
4. Allow yourself to imagine a point superimposed over the location that you had originally intended to shift to (as usual, this point should be imagined inside your head, not on the object being regarded). Sooner or later, the point may "appear," accompanied by a big release of strain.
[Two pointers: (1) Notice that I did not say "imagine a point" -- but rather, "ALLOW yourself to imagine." You can even tell yourself something like, "I allow myself to imagine a point at said location, should it decide to appear." By merely allowing yourself to imagine, you reduce the likelihood that you'll try to do something to manufacture that point. You'll find that the point tends to materialize on its own even though you only allowed yourself to imagine it, as opposed to decided to imagine it. (2) Give yourself a time limit. Tell yourself that if your point doesn't appear within one second, you'll shift your attention to something else. This also reduces the likelihood that you'll make an effort to imagine the point.]
Here's why I think this method works so well:
1. By making the decision to shift without actually shifting, you familiarize yourself with your accustomed response to the stimulus of wanting to shift to something. You actually feel specific muscles and get a sense for what you habitually do with them. You heighten awareness, and by heightening awareness and making a specific strain conscious, you make it possible to release.
2. Effortlessly imagining a point at the target location involves the exact same sequence of events as effortlessly shifting to the target location. In other words, you provide yourself with a more correct way to shift, only without CONSCIOUSLY shifting. Instead, you allow for it to happen automatically.
As Bates would say, when the vision is perfect, the imagination is perfect; when the imagination is perfect, the vision is perfect. In other words, for people who see perfectly, the act of imagining a point at a given location results in exactly the same movement as shifting (effortlessly) to that location. In the case of imperfect vision, you won't be able to imagine the point perfectly or shift to that point completely effortlessly. Rather, you'll imagine a point imperfectly, and your point of fixation will shift more or less in the general direction intended, but not perfectly so. However, the act of imagining causes a relaxation that allows for a more perfect alignment between the imagination and actual shift the next time you do it.
3. I've provided you with ways to calm yourself down and reduce the chances of sabotaging the effortless shift. Shifting your attention momentarily to a feeling in the body distracts you from trying to clamp down on the optical swing, allowing for the next step to be effective. And by only ALLOWING yourself to imagine, and by telling yourself that you'll shift your attention to something else if the point doesn't appear withing a second, you avoid doing something to try to manufacture the point.
Follow these steps exactly and literally, and you may see some amazing results. Have fun with this!
