Hi,
This is my first post here, i am wondering if any body can help me and others out, i had 20/400 vision 18 months ago then i learned about bates method and read the book and everything including bates magazines and the works of many others.. and about 6 months later i had 20/80 vision which is a really good start however the past 12 months has been strange, i have about 4 ways that i get a flash of around 20/35 within 5 minutes of doing any of the 4 relaxation techniques that i have learned, however after about 15-20 minutes the clear vision goes back to 20/80 and i just can't keep the clear vision any longer i spend around 3 hours (altogether) each day in a flash i can not get this higher no matter what i do. I sometimes have 20/25 vision upon awaking in the morning but most of the day my default vision is still 20/80 it has been like this for a year, i get the feeling i am missing 1 vital thing, does anyone know what i could be missing, or anyone who has fully cured the sight know what i am talking about?
So far you've come very far, so don't be discouraged, let me give you the congratulations for the dedication!
Which are the techniques that you do? and how often?. My advice is to keep the good work up, and noticing what brings you most relief and master your skill to keep up the clear vision (I'm still on the way in doing so...). Bates in fact have a place where he speak about 'dodging'. "WHENEVER your sight improves shift quickly to something else. Dodge your improved vision. Whenever you see things imperfectly shift your eyes quickly to something else. Dodge your imperfect sight. To stare always lowers the vision. Do not stare." (B.E.M Sep. 1923). I think Andrew (arocarty) can help you more in the issue.
Good luck
Thank you Deliverance for your reply, I will try the dodging method for a while and see how it goes, and yes definitely I will never give up until 20/10 hopefully lol! as the clear mind when in a flash is just too special and the whole body feels like it is floating. It seems though I keep going back to strain whenever my mind goes off to think about something general (not a negative thought) and at that point im not aware of vision exercises whenever I try more vision exercises it is better, but i just can't spend all day doing these things. I find it hard to integrate the good vision habits permanently.
Maybe it could then be the way I think, when I see people with perfect vision I see in their faces that their thoughts are like flowing water, how does one achieve this? or if anybody else knows how, please share..
the methods I do are mainly 4, I do each of them about a few times a day or as much as i can.
the methods with the biggest benefit for me are.
1. standing 3-4 foot from a window and swing side to side mostly moving the neck looking outside and noticing the oppositional movement of the net curtain (you are looking outside but the attention is on the slowly moving net curtain) gently moving side to side which was the only way and easiest way I could swing for many months (it is also even easier at sunset time as there is not as much light). a lot later I could do this for objects like a tree etc..
2. when your vision falls upon an object like a tree branch then look away and pause and imagine it like a photo in your mind very clear and vivid colours and very sharp then your eyes happen to fall next upon a door handle look away again and imagine it clearly in the mind try not to look back on each one after to see how well you can see it after imagining it. I was surprised at how well the imagination can be, you should temporarily forget about every single thing while doing this imagination and it should feel very real.
This is the most amazing one for me, as the sight is slowly relying on the mind which is the whole goal.
3. breath deeply and slowly but the important thing is to do it easily and effortlessly the easier it is the better, when your breath pauses or stops or shortens that is a sign of effort and strain produced somewhere in the body at that precise moment. To achieve very easy breathing lie down and have very positive and hopeful thoughts.
4. I couldn't sketch items for many months i tried but failed as my attention would be on my eyes while moving them which caused watering which is a sign of strain, instead i search the item I am looking at for any tiny flies or a tiny blemish as this uses my mind more and my eyes are moving for a purpose as i am searching for something, but obviously not to visualise anything on it that actually isn't there as this is false and will cause the mind to strain.
as an encouragement for people who are starting out, when i started I couldn't see any blackness on the chart at all never mind what the letters where! with -9 and -10 in each eye and now I have -3 and -3.25 in each eye.
@eaglevision: you're an inspiration for many, congratulations on the great success, in such a short period of time. The methods you applied are simple, creative, and effective. I think too many people tend to over think, and over complicate the process. You're definitely on the right track. I can't tell you how many times I would think the same thing - that I was just missing one thing, one critical element. Find that and it'll put me into the promised land...
You are going to have to dig very deep now, into how you your mind works, and what it wants to focus on, or not focus on. The eyes are a reflection of the mind, if they at at rest, open, quiet, curious, receptive, it's because the mind is able to be so. Don't forget that if it requires no effort to let go, then it follows that it takes no effort to maintain that state. Once you are able to let go, there's nothing else that you need to do to maintain it - well, nothing that requires effort, anyways. That's a hard mindset to maintain, because we are driven by many impulses that make us believe we need to constantly be doing something, thinking something. We have all kinds of intruding thoughts, jingles, multiple things bouncing around all at once. The person with normal sight seems more focused, able to think of one thing best, and put the other things up on a shelf until they want or need to pull them down and think of them. As Bates stated, the mind follows the same principles as the eye - those of central fixation.
When you do your imagination technique - do you imagine the things you have seen one part best?
I found sketching to be a strain too. I have never seen anywhere Bates suggesting to trace or sketch anything, only to shift on objects, from one point to another. It's a somewhat different visual system that controls smooth pursuit, as opposed to the saccadic system. Smooth pursuit evolved to follow something moving, and is optimized for that, as opposed to shifting on stationary objects.
curious- how do you use your eyes the rest of the day - work, study, indoors, outdoors, near, far, with or without glasses?
Eaglevision, I'd be interested to know how much if at all you wore glasses during the time your vision improved. When you started, were you able to do near-work without glasses? At -9, I would have thought that your acuity would have actually been quite a bit worse than 20/400, but I guess there's no definite correlation between diopters and acuity.
Also, were your before and after measurements confirmed in eye exams, and if so, what was the doctor's reaction to the improvement?
@arocarty Thank you Andrew for your input, great advice, when you say 'how your mind works, and what it wants to focus on, or not focus on' do you mean the way in which to think about something or to think of certain things that make it better?
And when I do the imagination technique I just think of the object as a whole but usually its a fairly small object like a mug or a door handle etc.. so I should instead picture the same thing but a very small part of it better in my mind, I will give it a go.
When I learned of the damage of glasses (when bates said that glasses should not be worn even in an emergency) (magazine July 1924) I just couldn't put them on again, so I put them away permanently, I don't work or drive so I don't need them, even for computer use, at first obviously I would sit very close but slowly pull away when I could. And I do try to limit my computer use. I spend most of my time indoors but I try to spend at least 1-2 hours a day to go outside for a walk or cycle over the hills and see very far and see nice landscapes, for some reason whenever I go outside my vision is 20/50ish throughout and my mind is so open and clear,
but yes when I go back indoors and at certain times my thoughts play havoc on me and when im outdoors my thoughts are different in a nice way.
and when you say 'The person with normal sight seems more focused, able to think of one thing best, and put the other things up on a shelf' do you mean when ever I want to think of something put my attention completely on that thought only and put my background thoughts out of my mind and not mix them thoughts up?
I think this hopefully could be the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle as for example today when I was outside shifting all day my vision became very clear, but when I came home and as soon as I started diving into my thoughts again I stopped shifting as I was busy thinking and my vision became worse, it does seems my thinking process reinforces strain,
i heard you have completely cured your vision, wow, congrats man! what was your sight before?
and I really appreciate you helping people out when you have already fixed your sight.
@Daniel I used to wear very weak glasses for only computer use (I don't watch TV) and then after a little amount of time I completely disregarded my glasses as I do not work or drive etc... then my improvement became more quicker after cutting out even the little time I used to wear my glasses,
yes you are probably right as my eye chart went up to 20/200 and as I wasn't even close to seeing anything even when I took quite a few steps closer, so it was probably more close to 20/800ish i don't know..
my little brother who is also doing eye exercises started at -5ish about when I started then went to have an eye exam recently and the eye doctor said he was now -3.25ish and I have a bit better vision than him now at the close and at very far so im probably around -3ish he has to use his glasses more so his progress is slower.
And surprisingly the doctor was curious and asked how he did it, and told him to carry on whatever he was doing which was good,
and no I don't go school I have just turned 24 I am though looking for work which doesn't need glasses.
no, it was an estimated guess, and i am very sure that this is very accurate as when i put on-2.25 glasses just to briefly check my sight, i can see 20/30 line
eaglevision Wrote:no, it was an estimated guess, and i am very sure that this is very accurate as when i put on-2.25 glasses just to briefly check my sight, i can see 20/30 line
Is it possible that the -2.25 glasses are a bit too strong rather than a bit too weak? 20/80 would usually be between -1 and -2.
eaglevision Wrote:Thank you Andrew for your input, great advice, when you say 'how your mind works, and what it wants to focus on, or not focus on' do you mean the way in which to think about something or to think of certain things that make it better?
I think what I am trying to say is in relation to mental control; realizing how much you are being acted upon by your thoughts, as opposed to being the primary director of your thoughts. Being about to put your mind to what you want when you want to. We all have many things to think of throughout the day, many things sitting up there on the shelf, so to speak. I likened the person whose mind is at rest, whose eyes are as well, is able to focus on what they want when they want, and put it back up on the shelf to think about some later point, if needed. They don't ignore it, they are just able to not let it impose itself when they don't want it to. "We think about many things but one thing best," Bates said, I forget where. To try to think about many things at the same time is mentally straining. Like trying to listen to two or more conversations at the same time. The only way to do it is to focus on one at a time, switch back and forth quickly. Even then you miss many parts of the conversation, and it can be taxing on the mind.
On the other hand, thinking of just one thing, or just one part of a thing too much can also be straining. We don't want to concentrate on one part of something, we want to think of it's many parts. How many times have you, or someone you know tried to remember something, couldn't, no matter how hard and long they tried to remember that one thing, then to have it pop into their mind of out nowhere after they moved on to thinking of other things. Concentration and effort put roadblocks in front of memory as well as vision.
eaglevision Wrote:And when I do the imagination technique I just think of the object as a whole but usually its a fairly small object like a mug or a door handle etc.. so I should instead picture the same thing but a very small part of it better in my mind, I will give it a go.
While you want to think of one part of the object at a time, you still have a sense of a whole object. You can still direct your attention to one part of it at a time, whether something in your memory, or imagination.
eaglevision Wrote:I spend most of my time indoors but I try to spend at least 1-2 hours a day to go outside for a walk or cycle over the hills and see very far and see nice landscapes, for some reason whenever I go outside my vision is 20/50ish throughout and my mind is so open and clear,
but yes when I go back indoors and at certain times my thoughts play havoc on me and when im outdoors my thoughts are different in a nice way.
When outdoors your mind is being stimulated by so many more things, you're employing all your visual assets - depth perception, peripheral vision, all sorts of motion causing optokinetic and vestibulo-ocular reflexes, natural light and textures and colors teasing the retina, fresh air, moving the muscles and getting the blood flowing.... is it any surprise that children who spend more time outdoors suffer fewer visual problems? Go back indoors into a dull environment, to where our poor visual habits developed, and we easily fall back into the same incorrect, conscious or unconscious habits and strain. Light is dimmer, colors drabber, no textures, everything is stationary, we sit, we engage back into our mental activities. You say your thoughts start to play havoc on you when indoors. Can you elaborate on that a little - how are they playing havoc? Are they interfering with what you need to get done? Are you engaging in things which interest you? Or are you bored, and your mind wandering all over the place ?
eaglevision Wrote:when i started I couldn't see any blackness on the chart at all never mind what the letters where! with -9 and -10 in each eye and now I have -3 and -3.25 in each eye.
eaglevision Wrote:i have about 4 ways that i get a flash of around 20/35....I sometimes have 20/25 vision upon awaking in the morning...
eaglevision, congrats. This is hilarious. You can get clear flashes within 18 months and overcame 10 diopters of defocus. If myopia is due to elongation of the eyeball, then your eye would have had to shorten by around 5mm lengthwise to see clearly now, quite a physiological feat! I highly suspect myopia is due to eye elongation.
I'm curious. How many years were you wearing glasses and what do you think caused your eyes to get so strongly myopic?
My guess is that the difference in prescription of your eyes (and also astigmatism if you have it) is hindering your progress...which are my issues, among many others.
I hope you reach your goal of 20/10. -Lou
@arocarty yes it makes complete sense when you say they are able to control their thoughts when they want and forget about what they don't want as when I try to control my thoughts sometimes I become a little light headed. what I mean when my thoughts play havoc is when I have been doing shifting all day and I can see clearly and then for example I think about what I will do tomorrow, I find my shoulders tense and my forehead muscles tighten just by my thoughts alone and I find after I was thinking my eyes where starting to stare a bit and my vision is worse, I think I am overdoing my thoughts somehow, in a way I'm not sure how to change,
and yes I am fairly bored at home as I have a bit too much time on my hands,
And when you mentioned the things that happen outside, yes as a result of these things for me it is like a cloud of confusion being lifted from my mind and it is really blissful and peaceful and my thoughts do become more like water, however I don't know how to bring this clear mind indoors, are their any exercises or techniques to improve this clear mind indoors as this looks to be the root of my problems.
