After some inspiration from ted, Iâve decided to start logging my thoughs and progress.
Some history:
- 23 years old
- Wearing glasses since 3rd grade
- Prescription: -4..25, -4.75 and -2 astigmatism in both eyes. Exophoria , where one eye deviates outwards.
- Since last month Iâve completely stopped wearing glasses
- Spend most of my days in front of computer. Do a lot of coding.
This month has had a lot of ups and downs.
Exophoria gone?
I think Iâve eliminated my exphoria. I say this because according to bates, squint in the eye is usually just in the head. You can demonstrate this by âmaking it worseâ. Well I did just that by forcing the deviations and âholding itâ. I even was able to induce it in my other eye. I just progressively stopped getting my eye to deviate.
I say âI thinkâ because now Iâve realized a new issue which I will expand on.
Unlocking my accommodation muscles
One of the most memorable experiences of my first week was âunlockingâ my accomdoation muscles. I think I was practicing shifting with one eye at a time, when I suddenly felt a sponge-like sensation in my eye. The letter I was looking at looked a lot closer than it actually was, then it gradually looked further away. The letter faded into focus, then faded out of focus. The sensation in my eye I can best describe as if whatever âmuscleâ was working became as soft as memory foam. I replicated this same experience in the other eye.
What I saw changed from that day. Everything around me became dynamic. I wouldnât say things âcleared upâ but like whenever I looked at an object the blur seemed to fade into a different blur and SOMETIMES it would even clear up for a second.
What I saw changed from that day. Everything around me became dynamic. I wouldnât say things âcleared upâ but like whenever I looked at an object the blur seemed to fade into a different blur and SOMETIMES it would even clear up for a second.
Different Accomodation levels in each eye cause fusion to break?
This is just a speculation based on what Iâve experienced. Say if you regard a sentence on a piece of paper. When you look at the first word, your eyes accommodate to that level. Now no matter where the paper is the distance between the paper and the left eye will always be different than the distance between the paper and the right eye. This means each eye must accommodate to a different degree to regard this word. If one eye is slower than the other to focus in on the word regarded, then fusion breaks.
Iâve been having this issue lately where as I read along a sentence my fusion continually breaks. I can force it to hold, and this is what I did, but I think holding fusion consciously instead of just waiting for my eyes to regain fusion on their own caused this chronic strain I had for the last 2 weeks in my nose area.
When I just let the fusion go and patiently shift my attention, it feels more relaxing.
Anybody else experienced this?
Optimums and Pessimums
I donât think I saw this discussed too much , but Iâve experienced this quite a bit while reading books. Certain letters or letter combinations always appear black while most others appear grey. I can sometimes âforceâ the grey to turn black while staring at it but this makes the muscles around my eyes stiffen. Even when I do force it, it rarely lasts and I donât notice an improvement in vision.
Things I need to work on Blinking
I blink plenty, but I donât blink softly, especially with my left eye which had exophoria. Iâm going to take davidâs suggestion of âsuggesting the ideaâ of lightly blinking instead of mechanically doing it. It seems to help when I remember to consciously do it.
Palming
Right now palming isnât very pleasant for me. Even closing my eyes is more strenuous than having them open. When they close it feels as though the ocular muscles along the nose are becoming more stiff. After palming for like 10 minutes there is some relaxation, but it quickly fades once I open my eyes. As I shift around it feels as though a muscle in my eye is spinning in a circle. I can almost consciously stop it but usually itâs too late by the time I Notice. I think I need to work on my shifting?
Iâll palm in 1-2 minute intervals more frequently while trying various memory exercises.
Imagination
I thought I was good on this but itâs really hard for me to sustain black for longer than a second. I think this will get better with practice.
Shifting
Right now if I lightly shift across a page of text , my fusion continuously breaks (but fuses back). If I shift more mechanically I can maintain fusion but it produces a sharp stiff strain. Iâm taking davidâs suggestion about âseeing with your soulâ instead of trying to associate my attention with some physical sensation. I think this is whatâs holding me back right now. Iâve associated certain strains with shifting and itâs so hard to let go.
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Phew that was long but I just wanted to put into words the things on my mind. I welcome any thoughts on what Iâm doing/experiencing right now.
Can you please make a video of this. Webcam and YouTube it.
I am collecting information on Strabismus for people, many children that contact me with this problem. I give them what I can, all Bates and some Modern teachers work... I have read Bates book, magazines about how he had patients create strabismus as you describe. I saw a girl doing it on YouTube a few years ago but no detailed directions how she creates this. Seemed effortless for her. If you show me this I will pay you. I would like to try it. I had a wandering eye and astigmatism from a neck, spine injury from a chiropractor goofing up the vertebrae, nerves. The nerves are still partly injured. I have to try this thing you do to have the best experience for teaching others. Tried the magic eye stuff in the past and developed double vision. All problems went away with Bates Method use only and a thing I call switching, shifting on close, far objects; both eyes, one eye time, both eyes. Has be done relaxed, specific way as natural as possible. Improves accommodation and convergence...
If I activate the injury I will get that awful frozen eyes feeling. See how immobile, staring my eyes were in this video and compare to others on Amazon profile. I had recently done extreme lifting of a computer and tvs.., 13 hours on computer doing graphics the day before and a clos efrined had a brain injury was in hospital almost died; http://www.amazon.com/Captain-My-Ship-Ma...Descending Did you ever experience this strange 'tension' at certain times?
Your definitely onto something about the accommodation! Major way the eyes work together, correct strabismus is when accommodation and un-accommodation in each eye is equal and best when perfect; makes perfect shifting and central vision, brain function with eyes, retina, muslces.
Saving your posts!
shocker, I also appreciate reading about your journey in vision improvement. My daughter has intermittent exotropia so I am very interested in how you deal with your exophoria.
I am curious how bad was your phoria? My understanding of an exophoria is that you can maintain fusion when both eyes are actively looking at something...but if you cover one eye, it turns outwards.
I can understand your issues with differing accommodation levels. My prescription has a 0.5 diopter difference between my eyes so sometimes I can tell I am only using one eye when looking at text at a distance where it is only clear to the better eye. (But it is interesting that I sometimes see better with my weaker eye.) I don't really experience fusion breaks when shifting across the page of text though. Is your phoria worse when looking near or far? My daughter struggles to keep her eyes fused when looking near which may be because it takes more effort for an exo person to converge one's eyes.
One other aspect of reducing strain is good posture, especially since you are sitting in front of computer a lot.
Have you guys tried the left and right brain hemisphere stuff that Janet Goodrich's and Thomas Quackenbush's books contain?
Dominance of one brain hemisphere can cause unclear vision at certain distances. Blur occurring in one eye and causing strabismus... may also be due to some specific hemisphere or whole brain function. If you look inside their books you will see a list of brain hemisphere actions, functions and also a picture of the eyes, optic nerves, brain; see how one side of the retina's images in each eye go to a specific area of the brain. So its more complex than just the hemispheres...
Alright since there's some more interest in my exophoria I'll go into more detail. Hopefully this answered your questions.
Some history
I first noticed the eye diverging in my first year of uni when I was trying to pay attention in lecture but my vision kept "overlapping". That's what I called it at the time, but it turns out my left eye was diverging outwards and causing my fusion to break.
My optometrist says I must have had it for quite some time, but I guess it didn't get bad enough to notice until that time. With that said, I did some reflection on my past and I think it must have affected me quite a bit. I was unable to maintain eye contact when talking to people, my reaction time and hand-eye coordination was abysmal. I don't know if this one is related but while reading I saw words that weren't really there, like my brain would get parts of a letter and then "fill" in what it thinks the rest was. Usually happened when I wasn't full on concentrating.
How bad was it?
Well I could maintain fusion and regain fusion once it broke at will. But that would require full time concentration on my eyes. This isn't very practical when studying. Inversely I could also "break" fusion at will as well. In the mornings it wasn't so bad, I'm guessing because of the rest I got the night before. But as the day progressed onwards it got worse. I overcame this by taking lots of stimulants as I mentioned in another post. I think I was on 30mg of dexedrine and cup of coffee in the afternoon to keep me going.
As for distance, fusion only broke in the close and medium distances. Looking far away I could maintain fusion with 0 effort. Actually even right now I can't break it in long distances with effort!
Glasses made it worse?
I remember pondering this a few months ago when I was still wearing glasses. It seems that glasses masked the fusion breaks because I would regain fusion pretty fast after it broke, but I would get a sharp stabbing pain the outer muscles of my left eye (towards my ear). When I had my glasses off it would be more of a smooth breaking/regaining of fusion bu it wouldn't hurt as much.
Another interesting thing is when I tried my glasses 2 weeks ago just to see how the eye chart would look, within 10 secondof wearing them I got that stabbing sensation in my left eye. Not sure why it's isolated there...
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After reading bates' chapter on "squint" it reminded me of back pain that I faced last year. They both involved how it is all just "in your head". I thought since the exophoria is already making me so miserable what's the harm in making it "worse"?
Inducing eye divergence
This is easiest for me to do in a bathroom mirror. I would look into the reflection of my own eyes one at a time, and intentionally "break" fusion. How to break fusion? Think of the cross eyed 3d images, but instead of using the "cross" eye method, try to look through the page. I'm not a big fan of the crazy eye images, I had more luck looking through 2 images to form one.
KInd of like this one:
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There's also an imagination element in this method, where you have to kind of think of your 1 eye diverging outwards. I just tried this now and I'm having trouble inducing divergence in the eye that originally had exophoria. I can get it to work with the other eye though. I can also break fusion without really having either eye noticeably diverge outwards.
Other important notes
'About 2 weeks ago I was feeling an overwhelming tightness in the ocular muscles along the nose for both eyes. During this time I had no fusion breakage. I think I was "foricng" to remain fused, I"m not sure. The most relief I had was when I started to just let my eyes do whatever they wanted to. If they wanted fusion to break, I would encourage it by forcing it to stay broken longer than my eyes wanted it to. I had that accomodation muscles unlocking feeling again shortly afterwards.
This is about the time I came up with the accomodation/fusion theory.
Where am I now?
My fusion still breaks while I shift but I don't think it's due to exoprhia anymore. My ocular muscles feel a lot "softer". I also had my clearest flashes in the past 2 days so I think I must be doing something right.
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Clark -I'll see if I can find my webcam and try to come up with something. lou_deg - How can you tell you're only using one eye? If you put your hand in the visual field of your "inactive" eye but outside of the "active" eye, are you unable to see it? David - You really need to either increase the length a user's session in this forum or flash the post variables. If I didn't habitually ctrl+c this post before submission I would have lost it due to being signed out. :
I didn't read everything yet but I saw your last comment. I increased the session timeout, so you should be able to compose your post all day now without worrying about the error.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
So; that should rule out birth trauma, neck-head, spine injuries and possibly rule out left-right brain hemisphere imbalance from crawling stage being disrupted. Maybe some crawling stage interfered with and lingering state in the brain. This is fixed with left, right brain hemisphere synchronization exercises and other practices.
In 1st year uni; mental strain? Trying hard to think, see? Any twisted neck, head posture? Thereâs another post on the forum about violinists developing astigmatism and other eye problems from many hours with the head, eyes tilted, twisted at an angle.., incorrect posture while playing violin and eyes on the music, conductor at same time.
Less clear vision in left eye? Right becomes dominant; ;left loses central fixation, position with right, trying to force it clear; it moves outward.
My left has always been the less clear eye for far. Right for close. With Bates method it has maintained clear in each eye, all distance, but; after neck injury; the left is the eye that wandered when looking form close to far! Hummm, lifelong underlying condition but Bates method prevented problem? Always had tiny uneven eyes but when stay with Bates method the eyes are even and stay in a nice round shape. Stress brings out an uneven shape, then practice corrects it. Bates knows his stuff about the outer eye muscles affecting the shape of the eye and clarity, movement.
Aha; farther down your post; brain filling in letters... not there; so maybe some hemisphere thing is going on? In some ways it is a normal vision/brain function but its working different, wrong. I had a temp dyslexia thing years ago when my hormonal balance was goofed up from a skin cream; progesterone and a herb called; vitex; I kept reading-seeing words from the middle first, numbers, letters misplaced. It cured when I stopped the hormones. There is a eye experiment in Thomas Quackenbushâs and other teaches books that show an object, like a line made a certain way. The center is missing but the brain âfills inâ the center part and the eyes see the line as complete. The brain compensates for alot of things for the vision. Canât remember exactly what page that is on.
Bates says no concentration when using the vision. Lot articles in Better Eyesight Magazine about; how not to concentrate. Famous scientists would take cap-naps to let the brain relax and figure a solution to an experiment; when the scientist wakes up; the solution pops into the brain.
So itâs mainly a closer vision fusing breaking thing. So youâre on the right idea of improving accommodation. Try the âswitchingâ practice on my website. I can give you a book on it. Get the accommodation, convergence and clarity perfect, equal in each eye. Also; reading fine and microscopic print as Dr. Bates describes will help; makes perfect, exact central fixation. It improves close and far vision. Forces you to relax; itâs the only way to see it clear.
Any sinus congestion, pressure? Sinus can affect eye movement. Avoid sinus sprays; toxic. NO sleeping medicine. Recent news saying its poisoning the optic nerve, eyes like aspartame in diet sodas.
Pain in outer muscles left eye, toward ear and worse with glasses; Computer use and other postures, repetition work can cause the neck vertebrae or just the muscles (shoulders too) to pinch on nerves in the neck. Nerves in the neck and top of the neck, spinal cord, brain stem go to the head, face and eyes and outer, inner eye muscles... One nerve that can affect blinking, âeyelid twitchingâ I think passes right through or near the area you mention by the ear. I had that this week after much lifting and way too much computer work, constant using left mouse, but I get it on right side ear, eyelids due to neck injury mainly on right side or is my weird computer posture standing, always tense right shoulder, trapezius muscle. Check your left and right trapezius. Maybe some acupressure on face, around eyes. (Remember; I was injured by a chiropractor. I donât advise them but there are other natural non-invasive ways to correct posture, regain movement.
Are the glasses lens made stronger in the left eye? Any astigmatism sections? If yes; itâs causing those muscles to become more tense. Even if the eyeglasses lens are equal, plain; if you have a tight muscle in that eye, the glasses will maintain, increase the tension and it can travel to the face, neck. Glasses CAUSE incorrect posture and neck, eye muscle tension. All interact, increase tension in eachother.
I met a man on here at the time I developed double vision from the crazy eye, âmagic eye picturesâ, 3-cups; he also developed double vision from the magic eye. He had to go to an Optometrist; The doctor had him look through the picture; (used a see through card or one with a slot in it) to a certain distance. Also some other exercises. He was cured. He also was injured by a chiropractor. Same old thing that often causes problems; chiropractor turns, pops neck, spine on only one side; comes out unbalanced. He had physical therapy for his neck and that helped.
Maybe get an expert to show you all this. Doctor says each personâs condition is different; thatâs why he does not like people learning the 3-D magic eye from books because doing it wrong or if itâs not needed can goof you up. Bates has a candle flame thing in his book. It might be somewhat similar but different. I will re-study and get back to you. Thanks for the video. Will watch entirely later today.
Try imagining the correct image your supposed to see; example; place a crayon in front of the eyes, between the eyes, eye level, in central field; look to the far distance; the pen should appear double in the peripheral field and the images at an even height and even spacing on left, right sides of the pen; if it does not; close the eyes and imagine it is seen correct. Open, check for improved images. Then do the opposite; look at the pen; the far object in line with the pen should appear double and the two images at even height and even spacing on left, right sides of the pen; if not; close the eyes an imagine they are seen correct; Open; watch for correct images.
Anything that affects the nerves can affect nerves going to eye muscles and cause temp double vision. Maybe ask your doctor or nutritionist for a healthy nerve strengthening diet; b1, b-12... and other nutrients. B-12 strengthens the coating on the nerves; like a covering on a wire. Donât overdose. Get nutrients from a food source is best; no chemicals. Too much b6 will cause nerve damage. I prefer not to eat meat, (the spiritual, kindness thing and afraid of all the hormones⦠in meat and mad cow!) but, during my recovery I found turkey relaxing and it has a lot of nerve building ingredients. Trying to find a natural, non-meat exact substitute.
Not sure I understand; are you imaging the wandering eye is wandering out? And this action improved the diverging eye?! Interesting. Try also imaging each eye is in correct position. I have a phoria swing you can try. (I still donât know How to post images on here. I did it one time, then lost the directions)
You can break fusion (the visual images go incorrect) without the eyes diverging out much. Also interesting; more of a brain function thing, little underlying astigmatism? Ask Nancyâs advice on this. Bigtime cured astigmatism!
Another 'symptom' tight muscles around nose (and seems from eyes?). Definite some kind tension traveling from neck, shoulders or; itâs tension traveling from tension, strain in brain, eyes into the face, neck.
Please state clarity of each eye separately and together up close at a few different close distances and diff. far distances.
I did slouch a bit in uni. Personally I don't think posture affects as many things chiropractors/physiotherapists would like us to believe. I discovered this during my stint with chronic back pain where I could not sit (literally) for longer than 2 minutes without feeling like someone stabbed me in my lower back.
Anyways I feel if I go in too much detail about my back pain here this will derail the thread big time, so I'll just rule this one out by saying that I have and still continue to do muscle imbalance correction exercises and feel that my posture should be fine now.
For those who are interested in learning more, here is a video by 20/20 on the doctor who wrote the book that basically saved me from this chronic pain:
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Quote:So itâs mainly a closer vision fusing breaking thing. So youâre on the right idea of improving accommodation. Try the âswitchingâ practice on my website. I can give you a book on it. Get the accommodation, convergence and clarity perfect, equal in each eye. Also; reading fine and microscopic print as Dr. Bates describes will help; makes perfect, exact central fixation. It improves close and far vision. Forces you to relax; itâs the only way to see it clear.
Will do. Appreciate the suggestions. How much distance should I use to read microscopic print? Should I try to see 1 letter black or somehitng? Or just print out an online article in size 2 print and just read it all and not worry about specificss?
Quote:Bates says no concentration when using the vision. Lot articles in Better Eyesight Magazine about; how not to concentrate. Famous scientists would take cap-naps to let the brain relax and figure a solution to an experiment; when the scientist wakes up; the solution pops into the brain.
I recall this no concentration thing and need to work on it. HOnestly I can't think of a concrete way. Funny you mention the cat-nap thing amongst scientists. I used this quite often in uni. I even did it on a test once!
Basically you first figure out everything you know about the problem. State all the knowns. Then try your best to solve it. After putting in enough time and "beating" the problem into your head, you try to completely forget about it and just let your subconcious do the rest of the work.
I Wonder if the approach is similar with vision improvement? This would imply trying real hard to see black or something and then just forgetting about it and going to watch TV/napping. Then coming back to the chart. Not sure though.
Quote:Any sinus congestion, pressure? Sinus can affect eye movement. Avoid sinus sprays; toxic. NO sleeping medicine. Recent news saying its poisoning the optic nerve, eyes like aspartame in diet sodas.
Not really. Will avoid.
Quote:Are the glasses lens made stronger in the left eye? Any astigmatism sections?
Last pair of glasses had same lsense for both eyes. But the last eye checkup (I didn't get new glasses) say my left eye is better than right eye. L : -4.25 R: -4.75.
Both eyes have astigmatism of -2 diopers.
Quote:Thanks for the video. Will watch entirely later today.
No problem. I don't recommend you follow the video's instructions for cross-eye. Looking through the page is a lot easier. Remember, if you're straining , then stop. Becareful if you have a huge monitor, it's a lot harder witha bigger image imo. Play around with distance. There's a "sweet" spot. (for me it's 2 feet).
Quote:Please state clarity of each eye separately and together up close at a few different close distances and diff. far distances.
Seperately both eyes experience the same. My best image maxium range is about 10inches to a foot. After that things gradually get blurry. Well words do, but I can still make out objects. Distance I can still make out objects/trees etc. Just a bit more blurr to discern. I think most of the blur is from astigmatism because if I wait long enough I can see a clear "clone" of wahtever I'm looking at. Like when yous ee double./tripple, one of them is a lot clearer.
Both eyes together, a tiny bit worse when reading words. I think it's due to my left/right eye images fighting each other? Or maybe the strain of maintaining fusion between 2 unequal eyes?
Thanks for the video. All help is appreciated. Maybe I will ask you about my ankle later. Open a discussion on Physical Therapy.
Read fine and smaller print at comfortable distance and increase to closer. That's mainly a treatment for age 40 and up that might develop presbyopia but it helps so many other things and prevents presbyopia. Just read it, even if blurry. Close the eyes, open, get flashes of clarity. Shift on a small letter. You can also practice shifting on a flower, stone, anything with tiny details. I got 4 sizes of print and get to the microscopic occasionally, only cause so busy.
Bates started teaching people to just imagine, think happy thoughts, pleasant scenery when palming to avoid the effort that some people do when imagining black. With the happy thoughts... relaxation and black eventually occurs on its own.
Ok; do not allow astigmatism in the eyeglass lenses. Don't let docs give you uneven strength lenses. Vision is not that unbalanced.
I think the astigmatism cure will speed improvement. See my website for natural astigmatism chart. Its most probably your level of clarity that's the main problem. When you get both eyes clearer and clearer vision; I bet the acts of shifting with perfect central-fixation 'centralizing' will occur and the eyes will move together, correct, no un-fused vision.
Saw video last night. I no longer use the artificial 3-D as in the video. That is what messed me up in the past.
I really think you will cure this. Just practice to get clear. No glasses if you can, otherwise for driving... do the reduced weaker thing they teach on here. See Nancy for help or Sorrisi. Both are successful with greatly improving their vision from very unclear to I think now glasses free or on last pair so weak its not even needed. Ask them for newest update on progress.
Brain associates wrong muscles for eye movement muscles?
This is something Iâve been observing for the last little while . Whenever I move my eyes say from one object to another, there is usually a corresponding muscular movement I feel in my ocular muscles depending on which direction my eyes move. This isnât a soft feeling like moving my fingers where I have to concentrate to tell which muscles are moving, the muscle movements (or tension) is so strong that itâs difficult for me to ignore.
At one point I thought it was my accommodation muscles that I was mistaking for movement. The movements are strange. For example if I shift to an object to the left of my current focus, my left eye muscles will feel like theyâre shifting upwards while my right eye feels theyâre shifting downwards. Vice versa for the opposite direction. Other times the muscles will feel like theyâre doing the ânormalâ movements, left and right. And other times thereâs simply no correlation and the sensation is just purely random.
Now I say muscles but it could just be tension being shifted to different parts of the eye. Or it could be my accommodation muscles like I mentioned before. It could also be like TMS I mentioned in a previous post, where my brain expects some associated muscle movement with eye shifting, so it creates one when one isnât present.
But nonetheless I think what causes these sensations doesnât matter. The sensation is too strong and in order to be ânormalâ I shouldnât feel it this strongly.
Has anyone felt these ocular muscle movements?
This might just be mumbling from my over analytical nature. I think I need to play around with shifting more to test these assumptions.
Phantom glasses and micro flashes
I canât be the only one here, who here still has phantom glasses? Like where soldiers who lose limbs in war still have phantom limbs. I catch my facial muscles sometimes trying to adjust my âglassesâ.
Iâve also been noticing micro clear flashes. These flashes happen so fast that normally one wouldnât even notice them. They occur usually when I shift without focusing on my vision. For example when I glance to check notifications on my external monitor, for the first split second I glance at the monitor, I see it really clearly.
Now what happens next is interesting. My immediate reaction is to look away. There isnât enough time for me to consciously think about what Iâm doing, so I think itâs an ingrained habit. Itâs as if Iâm afraid of seeing too clearly.
Iâve read on this site before that there is a psychological element to vision. I did always consider my myopia sort of a âshieldâ to the real world. I could kind of hide behind them. I think Nancy or someone mentioned in this forum about how bad vision makes you less self-conscious when youâre out in public. I definitely notice this when Iâm on the bus. Thereâs no fear of accidentally locking eye contact because I canât see the other personâs eyes! But if I wear glasses everything becomes so clear and my âshieldâ evaporates.
Could I be afraid of perfect vision?
Sharp stinging on eyes â sign of good vision
David made a thread about this and I believe I am experiencing this sensation. It usually precedes or comes after clear flashes, and sometimes it doesnât. I am actively trying to seek more of these. Also Whenever I get them, I try to prolong them by continuing to do whatever I was doing just before I felt it.
After I prolong this sharp feeling I end up with a lot more âsofterâ muscle movements. Iâm guessing this is a good thing. I consider these sensations an indicator that Iâm headed in the right direction.
Activities that have produced sharp feeling:
- Reading / shifting
- switching (method on clarkâs blog)
- Flashing ( in ebook on davidâs site)
- Swinging
Unfortunately none of these consistently produces the sensation. Itâs just occasionally happened during my practice of these activities.
How have you guys felt this stinging sensation?
Other things Iâm trying/feeling/thinking
- Been practicing fine print like clark suggested. Using size 2 font in Word. I donât think my printer is capable of printing size 1â¦. Or I canât even make a single letter out lol.
- Shifting by calling out loud the colors that I see. I feel this takes the pressure off trying to make out an object
- When walking about taking an almost apathetic attitude to what I see. No big deal if I donât make it out. Hoping this relieves pressure.
- Did flashing first time last night. I still get strenuous blinks. Woke up this morning with a sharp ache on the right-hand corner of my right eye, just about where my hairline begins. Not sure if itâs a chronic ache being exposed or something new. Canât feel it so much anymore.
- Palming is somewhat enjoyable, especially after the softness I get from the sharp sensation. Still doing 1-2 minute chunks (better something that nothing amirite?)
- Switching while going for walk. Have to be careful to not strain or try to âforceâ something into focus.
- Wonder if thereâs a device that beeps when you get too close to your computer monitor. Could help when Iâm working on laptop and really into it.
- Had a dream about vision âpoppingâ into clarity. Not sure if being trolled or a prelude of whatâs to come haha.
I havenât updated much because Iâve been stalling in progress quite a bit. Iâm going to list out my observations. I apologize in advance if it doesnât flow as well as my previous posts. Iâve just wanted to do a brain dump to see if having my thoughts out here may help me realize what Iâm doing wrong.
Right now I try to read 1-2 articles a day in fine print on my desktop monitior, since this is the only condition where I can keep my head a consistent distance away from the screen. If I use a laptop or on paper, it seems that my body likes to lean forward as my focus shifts from my posture to what Iâm reading.
Which leads me into why I donât do the snellen test card too much any more. I feel like where Iâm at itâs impossible to track progress. I keep leaning forward as I try to do the exercises as I get into them and it requires so much mental effort to keep myself at a constant distance while trying to do the exercise. I also get annoyed at the fact that even if I do experience improvement, it gets completely washed away the next day as if I never practiced at all. It has been making me rage quite a bit lately so Iâm going to take a step back until I cool down and figure out what Iâm doing wrong.
I do about an hour of walking a day in the sun, shifting/switching at distance/close objects. Iâve had my longest flash which was about 40 secs, but I havenât had a multi-blink flash. The clear vision usually disappears after 1-2 blinks.
I notice that the strain I experience is mostly around the sinuses. I can sort of âstretchâ th strain at times by simply opening my mouth. I can feel it pulling along my jawline and upto my sinus.
Iâve been trying to hold an object in my imagination because I realize I canât maintain a letter in my mind for longer than a split second. Iâve read that you should use an object you have positive associations with, so I use an old gaming mouse I had since it reminds me of positive memories I had gaming as a teenager. It seems I can keep it in my memory for a couple seconds but only if I imagine myself using it and pushing on itâs buttons at a fast pace. If I try to slow the movements of the mouse down, the memory of it gets disturbed and I lose the object from my imagination. Even with hyper fast changing movements it only lasts if I keep changing the movements. I canât just imagine the mouse moving back and forth in one vector, it has to be moving in a motion as if Iâm actually using it. I was a bit surprised how much detail I could recall about it because I havenât seen it for years. Nonetheless I donât notice much change in strain when I do succeed in imagining it.
I recall a story in batesâ book about some woman who bragged about how she could see multiple images of the same object. Basically think double vision x10. Obviously here eyesight got worse as a result. Iâve noticed that as my eyes get tired, I can see a spot of light just like this woman. Traffic lights, pot lights, any kind of light that is in a âspotâ turns into dozens as I shift my focus to it. How do I reverse this? Iâve tried shifting on the clearest one but it seems to amplify my strain and make me see multiple clones clearly. This effect gets worse the further I am away from a light spot.
Ah, I thought that was the effect of astigmatism where an LED for example forms into multiples. I get it all the time and the more I try to clear it up, the worse it gets. I think that seeing only one spot of light where there is only one spot if light will be the last thing to improve with my vision. I don't worry about it. I was looking at a traffic light in the distance on a bright day recently and as usual it manifested as multiple dots of light. So I just told my brain that there is only one light there and focused on one of the dots of light. In a short time it became one dot of light. Didn't stay that way of course, but I think is a product of mental strain more than anything and I think I read this somewhere, maybe on this forum.
jimboaxeman Wrote:but I think is a product of mental strain more than anything and I think I read this somewhere, maybe on this forum.
You're right, there Jim. Maybe you remember from one of the Bates magazines:
"The cause of astigmatism is always associated with an effort or a strain. In all cases the stare can be demonstrated. An imperfect memory requires an effort or a strain and always produces astigmatism. An imperfect imagination also requires an effort or strain and always produces astigmatism. A mental strain of any kind always causes astigmatism. In the normal eye, astigmatism can be produced with a very slight amount of strain or effort to see. In those cases, however, where a great effort is made for a length of time, the astigmatism becomes very much increased, and may be more or less permanent." [Dec. '26]
jimboaxeman Wrote:So I just told my brain that there is only one light there and focused on one of the dots of light. In a short time it became one dot of light. Didn't stay that way of course, but I think is a product of mental strain more than anything and I think I read this somewhere, maybe on this forum.
Interesting. I've experienced something similar but it was more of all of the dots lining up than actually becoming 1 dot if that makes sense. Like all the "clone" dots fused into one bigger bloated dot and then they all spread about immediately afterwards. Also when I look at a dot of light I feel a lot of movement amongst my my ocular muscles, or the dynamic strain I mentioned before. I say either or because I'm not sure which it is but I feel something moving as the dots spread out and come together.
Ever thought of trying to mechanize the training to correct this? I think dots of light give us an opportunity to improve astigmatism because it gives us something that's easily trackable. I'm still toying with the idea by shifting on the one I see clearest. I haven't got any great results yet but I will post once I do.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that if I use a colored light , I'm able to easily notice my eccentric fixation. Basically, as I move my gaze away from the light it gets brighter. I wasn't able to notice this as easily with a non-colored light.