my story is unusual in that i studied the Bates Method when i had perfect sight.About thirty years ago ,because i had to constantly read and study a lot of material daily,i wondered if i should get myself a pair of eyeglasses,to see if it would make my work load easier. I went to the library and read books on eyes and eyesight.Most of the books were identical in regards to the information that they contained,and they all agreed that as a person aged they would probably need eyeglasses to read with.However two books that had the opposite view were Better Eyesight without Glasses,by Dr Bates and The Art of Seeing by A. Huxley .These two books ,especially Huxley's, convinced me that if I followed there advice I would never need glasses. However knowing and doing are two different things,and when I reached my late forties,I started having slight vision problems,and I did what most people do,and got myself a pair of reading glasses.Of course though the years I needed stronger and stronger glasses.My eyesight got so bad I needed glasses to watch T.V.,and reading became more of a chore and wearing glasses became sheer misery for me.In December of last year I decided I had had enough of glasses and decided to give the Bates Method a try.So in January of this year (2005) i went on the internet to see if i could find a copy of Bates book to refresh my memory on his method,and came across Dave's site.I'ts almost a full year now since I stopped wearing glasses,and I can now read the smallest of type without glasses ,and i am sixty two years of age.However the benefit doesn't stop there,for my victory over poor eyesight ,thanks to Dr Bate's,has given me a new lease on life.Wearing glasses made me feel old and clumsy,and thanks to my new found confidence,I have been able also ,to not only improve my eyesight ,but have been able also ,in the past year to lose about thirty pounds of overweight,and i am now almost at my ideal weight level.Success begets success.
blackspot Wrote:my story is unusual in that i studied the Bates Method when i had perfect sight.About thirty years ago ,because i had to constantly read and study a lot of material daily,i wondered if i should get myself a pair of eyeglasses,to see if it would make my work load easier. I went to the library and read books on eyes and eyesight.Most of the books were identical in regards to the information that they contained,and they all agreed that as a person aged they would probably need eyeglasses to read with.However two books that had the opposite view were Better Eyesight without Glasses,by Dr Bates and The Art of Seeing by A. Huxley .These two books ,especially Huxley's, convinced me that if I followed there advice I would never need glasses. However knowing and doing are two different things,and when I reached my late forties,I started having slight vision problems,and I did what most people do,and got myself a pair of reading glasses.Of course though the years I needed stronger and stronger glasses.My eyesight got so bad I needed glasses to watch T.V.,and reading became more of a chore and wearing glasses became sheer misery for me.In December of last year I decided I had had enough of glasses and decided to give the Bates Method a try.So in January of this year (2005) i went on the internet to see if i could find a copy of Bates book to refresh my memory on his method,and came across Dave's site.I'ts almost a full year now since I stopped wearing glasses,and I can now read the smallest of type without glasses ,and i am sixty two years of age.However the benefit doesn't stop there,for my victory over poor eyesight ,thanks to Dr Bate's,has given me a new lease on life.Wearing glasses made me feel old and clumsy,and thanks to my new found confidence,I have been able also ,to not only improve my eyesight ,but have been able also ,in the past year to lose about thirty pounds of overweight,and i am now almost at my ideal weight level.Success begets success.
Thanks for sharing such a great success story, blackspot! It will be inspiring to others. Which methods did you use, or was it merely discarding glasses that did the trick?
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Dave Let me start by saying that you played a major part in my ability to do away with eyeglasses,by having this wonderful website available.The fact that i was unable to read newsprint without glasses would have made it very difficult for me to read Dr Bate's book without glasses.The fact that you had the complete Dr Bate's book available on your site meant that i could set the computer in the largest print setting,thus giving me the ability to read the book without glasses. Last January my eyesight was such that I was unable to read newsprint without glasses,and i had difficulty distinguishing a nickle from a quarter.(Canadian coins) Having decided to give the Bate's Method a try,and knowing that I would be unable to read any normal print without glasses.I decided to use my computer to measure my progress by setting it at the largest print setting and doing all my reading on it.The fact that i was retired meant that i could devote as much time as i wanted to my eyesight recovery. I decided first to check the condition of my eyes,and while looking at an article that was in large print on the computer,I covered my right eye to determine what i was seeing with my left eye.With my left eye i could read the words but some of the letters i was seeing double,especially the letter O.Covering my left eye,i looked at the article with my right eye and discovered my right eye was a disaster area, for i was seeing all of the letters double and could barely make them out but what caused me alarm was the fact that i appeared to be looking though a haze. It felt/seemed to me that i had a covering over my right eye.The first thing i thought of was cataract,and i wondered if i had one on my right eye.and i started thinking that maybe i should see an eye doctor,but i decided instead to press ahead with the Bate's Method. The last time i had an eye test was over forty years ago,and i had perfect vision at that time but i was informed that i had a slight scratch on the cornea of my right eye.So i thought that perhaps over the years the scratch on my right eye had caused it to become lazy,but i didn't have a clue if i was right or wrong on this,it was just a guess on my part.Because of my thoughts on my right eye ,that it was lazy,i decided to wear a patch on my left eye,for a short while every day ,in order to force my right eye to work.(i may have been wrong in my assumptions, and wrong to wear a patch,all i can say is that i have now clear vision in my right eye .) One of the things i would do every day was,while my left eye was covered with a patch, i would start doing shifting and swinging with my right eye.At first while doing this i could not believe how stiff my right eye was, and i had to almost force it to move left and right,and it felt like a marble.After a number of weeks went by ,one night, while doing shifting and swinging ,i felt as if gravel was breaking up around my right eyeball,the sort of stuff a person finds in the corner of their eye when they wake up in the morning. also i had the strange feeling that a covering of skin was peeling of my right eye.(i'm not saying that my eye was covered with anything ,just expressing the feeling i had in my right eye.) I have to say that progress in my right eye was extremely slow,and many a time i felt like quiting,for many's the time i felt like i didn't know what i was doing and that i was crazy for trying to cure my own eyesight and i thought of how all the books i had read on eyesight agreed that a person of my age should expect to have to wear glasses.However my left eye was showing vast improvement and i was now able to read newsprint without glasses so this encourged me to keep working on my right eye. In his book ,The Art of Seeing,Aldous Huxley made it clear that he was only able to read in strong light situations,and so he preferred to do his reading and writing outdoors in the sunlight. For indoor reading he used a strong spotlight.I live in Canada, and the winters are brutal,,so all winter long i looked forward to the summer so that i could read outside in the sunlight.While waiting for summer ,i went on the internet and searched for the strongest reading lamp available. I came across a lamp called Happy Eyes by Verilux,that gives a light similar to natural daylight.It was expensive,over $200, but I purchased it and it was well worth the money.When summer came I went to the park with a newspaper and with sunlight falling on the newspaper,i covered my left eye and tried to read as best i could with my right eye ,while doing a lot of shifting and swinging with that eye.Over the summer my right eye improve to the extent that i could read the newspaper clearly with it. I would like to make it clear that i did not use all the techniques found in Dr Bate's book.For instance i did not use a Snellen Chart,nor did i practice the long swing,and while i palmed ,i did not do it extensively.What benefit me the most was shifting and swinging,and the techniques found in the chapter on central fixation, and also sunning. Over thirty years ago ,acting on the advice in Dr Bates book that reading diamond print daily was a good way to keep the eyes in good condition,i purchased the smallest book i could find It was a minature bible printed in gem type ,a type that is similar in size to diamond .However ,as i explained elsewhere i did not follow though with the advice of reading the small print on a daily basis and the small bible sat unused for thirty years.Now every morning while having breakfast,i pick up the little bible and open it at random to any page and start reading it. Yes,here i am a person,sixty two years old ,who just last January had difficuly reading the largest print on the computer screen who now is able to sit down and read a minature bible printed in gem type ,without glasses.As Ripley said,"Believe it or Not." Blackspot l
Not bad at all for 1 year, Blackspot. Has that haze over your right eye gone away too?
I always like to recommend anyone new to this to read Bates's book thoroughly, and then every now and then go back and reread chapters you find interesting. But when it comes to actually practicing it, focusing in on one method is just fine. No need to do everything - they all lead to the same goal, just in different ways. Although sunlight is something special that really everyone needs to make sure to get enough of.
I have a some of those full spectrum lights too, a couple at home and one at work, by two different makers, neither Verilux, but I've heard of Verilux too. I'm looking into getting them introduced at the company I work at for my day job too. Wouldn't that be nice!
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Dave Thank you for inquiring,yes the haze has gone.In regards to the other techniques that I did not use,such as the long swing,it was not that i disregarded the long swing,it was because i kept telling myself that"Tomorrow i'll start the long swing" and of course tomorrow never came.However i do intend to start the long swing,and other techniques that Huxley used,for i want to keep my eyes as sharp as possible.With the exception of my time in the park,my entire cure took place while seated at the computer. When i read comments about the amount of time that people say they spend practicing the Bate's Method such as "I try to spend half an hour every day on the Bates Method "I don't think people realized how simple the Bates Method really is,and that it is possible to spend many hours a day practicing the Bates Method, without taking away any time from their daily routine.To give a simple illustration.I like watching old movies. On the internet there is a website called Wayback Machine.org,on which you can watch hundreds of old movies for free.The movies are shown using Quicktime,which uses a small screen.Since i considered my right eye lazy,before watching the movie,i would put a patch over my left eye and watch the movie using my right eye.While watching the movie with my right eye I would be continually shifting .For example when the hero was talking ,instead of consentrating on the hero i would look at the face of the person he was talking too,and then quickly at the face of any bystanders,then look at the hero.I would continually shift though out the movie.However i only kept the patch on for about half the movie and would watch the rest of the movie with both eyes,while continually shifting.The end result was that i enjoyed the movie and improved my eyesight at the same time.What could be simpler? I also used the computer to guage my progress.For example,on the bottom right hand corner of the computer ,on the task bar there is an area that displays the time in white numerals.When i first started my eye improvement i would look at that area to check the condition of my eyes.With my left eye all the numerals were seen double,and with my right eye it was a hopeless task trying to tell the time.I checked my eyes every day by looking at the numerals one eye at a time,and as the days and weeks past,i could notice the gradual improvement, until i reached the point where i am now, that when i look at the time it is as clear as a bell.
