Hi, I have one question.
When I´m palming I imagine a black dot on a white backgroud and it really helps me. But where I should imagine it when my eyes are open?
Somewhere in my mind also on white backgroung or exactly on the spot I´m looking at or somewhere next to it??
- continue to remember it in your mind, not out in your visual field
- imagine it as making up part of some black object or letter
But as a general rule, don't try to imagine it pasted somewhere in your visual field - unless that object is black as well. And if you are imagining it as making up some part of a letter, don't try to think of it continuously on one part of the letter - imagine it on another part, then another part. Even with the eyes closed, never try to think continuously of one black point.
The background color of the black dot does not matter, whatever you prefer.
I usually look at something really dark in my vison field and imagine, that one part of it is very black - much darker than I see it in reality.
Or I imagine a very small fruit fly flying around somewhere in front of the objects I look at.
Thinking of a black dot is one way of using memory or imagination, probably more the latter as if you look at a printed full stop (or "period") they are actually quite irregular in shape. Practising imagination can lead to powerful temporary improvement. Sooner rather than later, in my experience, you may find it harder and harder to repeat this - something is stopping you from following through. This is probably what David refers to as your 'programming'. It takes patience and determination to break through this, or so I believe.
There is also imagining a tiny point, really small, every time you blink when you are practising (as you should) looking in tiny areas (looking for detail). This is something that David suggested a while back. It is also very powerful, but it can feel like it's too much to keep up. David was talking recently about different levels, a narrowing of your area of attention I think. Even with my severe myopia, however, I find that imagining a tiny point this way is excellent for 'connecting' with my visual field and getting the visual system ticking over. I keep find myself forgetting to use it and scratching my head about how I should proceed. The programming is not easy to break!
sean Wrote:Thinking of a black dot is one way of using memory or imagination, probably more the latter as if you look at a printed full stop (or "period") they are actually quite irregular in shape. Practising imagination can lead to powerful temporary improvement.
For me looking at a black spot or imagining a small black object (moving or stable) is mainly a very good help to relaxation - which may also lead to improvement as a consequence.
But I usually do this when I feel that my eyes are not relaxed, not in order to improve my vision.
sean Wrote:Thinking of a black dot is one way of using memory or imagination, probably more the latter as if you look at a printed full stop (or "period") they are actually quite irregular in shape. Practising imagination can lead to powerful temporary improvement. Sooner rather than later, in my experience, you may find it harder and harder to repeat this - something is stopping you from following through
We often get drawn into the mindframe that remembering the black period will cause us to relax. The memory of it is not the cause of relaxation, but is the evidence of it - the more perfect we can relax, the more perfect we can remember that black area. Relaxation precedes the memory of it, so it's best, at first, to keep working within the conditions under which you can relax the best (closed eyes, palming, at the near point utilizing CF). The better one gets at remembering it under the favorable conditions, the better one will be able to extend into less favorable conditions, at further distances. Many probably get way ahead of themselves, before they've had sufficient control under those favorable conditions.
arocarty Wrote:We often get drawn into the mindframe that remembering the black period will cause us to relax. The memory of it is not the cause of relaxation, but is the evidence of it - the more perfect we can relax, the more perfect we can remember that black area.
For me it its 'working' in both 'directions' - looking at something really dark (or imagining it) helps me to relax and beeing relaxed helps me to see perfect black - for example the letters of the eyechart. And the best thing is to let it 'work' in both 'directions' simultaneously: let the black colour deepen your relaxation and at the same time let the relaxation intensify the sensation of black...and so on.
When I do this during my eyechart practice - concentrate on the black colour of the letters as a means of relaxation (instead of trying to read them) - I can notice the results immediately; the letters appear blacker and blacker and clearly distinct from the white background. This way, they become readable without effort.
Nini
Interesting - I do this (not with a dot, as it happens) to bring clarity not relaxation. It will always work if I insist hard enough - but that's the problem. Why does my mind always try to squirm out of it? Perhaps relaxation should be my goal (??)
Andrew
As I said above it's not relaxation but clarity I'm talking about, and it's imagination not memory. But you are right in that I say that imagining it causes it and brings about clarity.(Palming for me is nice and relaxing but has never improved clarity.) In fact, at one stage it was working so well I thought it would be sufficient on its own.
Your final two sentences are interesting because I don't quite get them. I have an idea what you mean by control, particularly when I've been consciously directing my attention to what I'm looking at (ie out of my thoughts) and connecting with my field of vision - it's like a fragile cord that breaks so easily. When you can do it just sitting there or walking along you try to extend it to other things - David recently suggested washing up, but in my experience wrecked my best ever effort to keep it going over an extended period.
There is a 'control' thing about it in that when I really get into the thing I am imagining (with open eyes) and where I have my eyes resting clears up it's very hard at the moment it all clears to keep it up. It's something like doing to the mind the equivalent of digging up an ingrown toenail without anaesthetic. Bates mentions in his chapter or memory or imagination (probably the latter) the case of a man who gets over-excited (or whatever the word is) when the letter on the chart clears for him - if I remember correctly he seems to lose control. And this seems to be the problem which Bates has to work on to overcome (though I don't think he says what happened next but just moves onto the next anecdote). For me, using this method, it's not the seconds after getting clarity where I feel this resistance but those just before.
I hope you don't mind me asking you directly, but is your comment taken from Bates or from your own experience?
You might also elaborate a little on your last sentence as that might apply to me.
While you're at it could I also ask you to say a bit more about using good vision practice when reading (something as you say we do a lot of) as that seems to be the same, or similar, to your reference above to the 'near point utilizing CF'?
And finally, just to clarify, I usually don't push it with the imagination exercise as what I am concentrating far more now on looking for detail (or even just 'looking'), ie imitating what the eyes should be doing naturally. But all the same, practising it seems to be, somehow,practising control (??)
If I may add my two cents, I think the word "control" is part of the reason it's difficult to communicate clearly about this. When Bates said the over-exicited man "lost control" we may think "Oh no!" in embarrassed sympathy, and feel relief that it wasn't us! Losing control is anathema to most modern people. I'm taking a guess that Bates only meant the guy lost mental focus, or lost his sense of being present and paying attention.
My own vision practice lately is going better if I focus on experiencing and noticing, observing how the images look when I do certain things (or don't do them), rather than focusing on shifting, or on CF practice, on some activity I have to *do*. I think I'm starting to get why the vision teachers who've been around for a long time are getting more and more zen-like in their teaching and writing, which is very frustrating when I want them to tell me what to DO to get clearer eyesight! As usual, this post may raise more new questions than give The Answer, but it seems to be working for me if just simply pay attention to how I'm seeing in the moment and what might be contributing to the quality of that, then how it changes, like a scientist observing my world. I'm realizing as I write this that if my focus is on "how can I relax more?" rather than on "how can I see better now?" the vision gets better. Maybe this is because it's less end-gaining, less "trying to control".
sean Wrote:I hope you don't mind me asking you directly, but is your comment taken from Bates or from your own experience?
My comments are based on what I have read from Bates, from other Bates teachers, from my own experiences, and also from the experiences of others I've read and listened to over the last several years.
sean Wrote:For me, using this method, it's not the seconds after getting clarity where I feel this resistance but those just before.
Perhaps you're anticipating clarity, and thinking that you need to DO something once it's attained. I think as part of the whole 'control' thing, we feel we need to do more to keep it, thereby injecting something irregular into the process. People lose control because they create a false sense of what it is - whereas it's simply just an ability to avoid the compulsion we feel that we need to do more. Bates himself could not fully explain how people overcome the old 'horns of the dilemma" issue, other than guiding them through it in an incremental way, starting under the most favorable conditions under which they would strain the least, and challenging them as they gained better mental control at the favorable distance, or condition. I think Bates approached it in a much more deliberate and incremental fashion than the average person seeking natural vision improvement.
I've spent a lot of time practicing things at the near point - trying to cultivate the right habits, especially as they pertain to reading. Yes, fixating on points in and around text is one of those things, and once one becomes more adept at that, you may become better at imagining the halos that surround and fill the letters, and able to see the optical swing. Initially I may have spent a lot more dedicated time to just practicing looking at letters - fixating on points, in any direction, as opposed reading. That way I didn't have to worry about comprehending anything, and focus on just the way I was shifting, fixating on letters. Now it's just more natural, I can read/comprehend while employing the better habits without thinking about it much.
sean Wrote:And finally, just to clarify, I usually don't push it with the imagination exercise as what I am concentrating far more now on looking for detail (or even just 'looking'), ie imitating what the eyes should be doing naturally. But all the same, practicing it seems to be, somehow,practicing control (??)
I think one can overdo that as well, sometimes. People w/ normal sight are not dissecting everything they look at a majority of the time. I find that things are seen often seen perfectly with a casual glance, that I only examine it closely when it has grabbed the attention for one reason or another. It can be quite a mental drag if to try to constantly dissect everything we look at by its minute details. Detail is not everything. Shape, color, contrast, movement, are all other ways in which we identify and make sense of objects and our environment (as well as our other senses of smell, sound, touch, and taste). Do we first identify an object by it's shape, or by it's details? I think the former, then we fill in the details as is necessary at the moment. I find that the details of something sometimes pop out less effortlessly when I just think of the shape - moving my attention from just outside of one edge to another, building the basic shape up in the brain. The edges of things that more highly contrast to the background, even better. There are other ways to think of and approach it, rather than just locking oneself into one way.
Thanks for your detailed reply, Andrew. I've printed it off and will read through it at leisure. Yes, 'horns of a dilemma', that's the phrase I was trying to remember.
Feeling resistance to getting clarity when I do the imagination exercise doesn't feel like I am straining to do something. It's an artificial situation of course where I am imagining something else with my eyes open and this leads to whatever I'm looking at clearing up. What happens is my eyes tingle intensely and water, perhaps comparable to the feeling you'd get (taste this time) if you were to bite into a lemon!
Your comments on control I share when it comes to the clarity that develops when you 'stay with' what you are looking at and refuse to 'break the thread' by retiring back into your thoughts.
Your comments on practising at near point while reading are really useful. I'd been asking myself if this is what I'd have to do and that's apparently what I'll have to do.
As regards your final paragraph, yes I don't drill down and dissect all the time, like you say. Really, what I am trying to do is not to switch off but continue to look.
Nancy, your comment was also very useful. I think I'm beginning to see it from that point of view myself.
There are two elements above all as far as I see it. One is the need to relax and not to strain. But at least as important (certainly more important for me) is the need not to switch off, but to continue to actually look. I was thinking earlier today that relaxation by itself is not enough if you are not also looking at the tiniest details - in fact it's not relaxation at all as if you aren't doing this then you are straining to see a wider area than you need to.
