Dr. Bates, in Better Eyesight Magazine (December 1921), wrote:
"Remember your successes (things seen perfectly); forget your failures (things seen imperfectly)"
I have a very poor vision. When practicing palming, blinking and shifting, sometimes I get a clearer vision (especially of words: on television, on signs in the street, in packages, etc.), that only lasts for a few seconds, until I blink again. However, with this poor vision, I consider this clearer moments to be a success. Yet, things are clearer, but are not seen perfectly. So, should I remember this moments of success, or should I forget them, because they're not seen perfectly? This always confused me, and I don't know if I should celebrate them (which I always do with a huge smile on my lips...) or just don't think of them again...
But you can see clearly at the near point, right? Why not remember those things?
Someone who sees blur at any distance would have a hard time with this particular method unless they have flashes of clear vision to remember.
Really what you're remembering is not the object itself, but your experience of seeing it. So it's better to remember something seen clearly at the nearpoint than something still fairly blurry in the distance, unless it's sharp enough to illicit a feeling. You're the best judge of that. And it's yet another reason why glasses mess things up - the memories you have of seeing clearly through them all involve strain.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
The word "success", in my conception, means going from something bad to something good. To see a clear object when it was blurry before is an example of this conception. Seeing clearly at a near point is something I didn't consider to be a succes. The good vision is there, it's not something I achieved by exercise or less mental strain or whatever. I didn't do anything to have such a good vision. That's why maybe I took Bates' sentence out of its context.
I noticed, these last few days, that when I read or look at something at a close distance, is much easier to remember it (especially with my eyes closed) than something not so close. So, maybe I have to change my conception of success, or at least give a lot more importance to what Bates said that didn't get completely my attention before: things seen perfectly.
1. Some OD says your refractive STATE is -2.25 diopters.
2. You check your Snellen and confim that you
see 20/100.
3. You work with your "clearing" method, and
veryify that the line you see on your Snellen
gradully improve until you see 20/50 to 20/40,
after about six weeks.
This confirms that your method is successful.
With that initial self-confirmed success, you
can step wearing the minus.
You then continue with the "improvenment"
until your Snellen gets better than 20/40 (passes
all DMV level tests).
