Myopia really did mess up my life. All was going well on my plans, until myopia reared its ugly head into my life. Now I find myself wishing I can go back to a past time before this stupid eye distortion ever entered the picture. I wonder if that is really possible.
No offense the the people here, but I feel that there is an air of false hope that is not necessarily attainable.
I really did try my hand with the Bates method: palming, swinging- all the works. Sadly, this comes to no avail. I've even tried my hand at hypnosis.
So thus, I find myself upset that I ever had to contend with this stupid eye illness, and uncertain wether I can truly fix the problem... .
Maybe it's possible, but for some it means a great life change. As Martin Brofman puts it, some people say the changes in their life have far overshadowed the small thing of improved vision. Martin Brofman by the way cured his own terminal cancer and in the process restored his vision, without knowing about the Bates method at all.
I didn't find too much help with the standard Bates methods and only use them occasionally. I find myself feeling more and more a sense of how far from where I want to be in life I am and am starting to really understand how poor vision has been a result of this overtime. The way one does things on an hourly basis determines if they will maintain their poor eyesight for the day, the week, and so on.
If 20/20 eyesight is the healthiest and easiest way to see, one must be doing wrong things continuously to maintain bad eyesight continuously.
(02-12-2016, 11:34 PM)ted Wrote: Maybe it's possible, but for some it means a great life change. As Martin Brofman puts it, some people say the changes in their life have far overshadowed the small thing of improved vision. Martin Brofman by the way cured his own terminal cancer and in the process restored his vision, without knowing about the Bates method at all.
I didn't find too much help with the standard Bates methods and only use them occasionally. I find myself feeling more and more a sense of how far from where I want to be in life I am and am starting to really understand how poor vision has been a result of this overtime. The way one does things on an hourly basis determines if they will maintain their poor eyesight for the day, the week, and so on.
If 20/20 eyesight is the healthiest and easiest way to see, one must be doing wrong things continuously to maintain bad eyesight continuously.
That's how I feel, and yet, once you're in the pit, how can I climb out of it? I still haven't landed in a life situation I'm content in, and my poor vision is a hindrance, not an asset....
It sounds like you think the disorder is something that you got stuck with out of bad luck.
The disorder exists because you have created it and continue to. The visual system can take a huge amount of misuse, but at some point your constant misuse is so extreme that it can't compensate or keep up to fully do its job anymore.
The human body is amazing. There are millions of things that can go wrong all the time that would mean disaster, and it catches everything and keeps us alive despite things like all the toxins we ingest, the injuries we suffer, and all the new varieties of viruses and bacteria invading. The visual system is the same way, and it can accommodate a wide range of weird ways that people perceive the world around them and their patterns of looking at things, but ultimately there's a limit to what it can handle.
Exercises like palming and swinging have beneficial effects in certain circumstances, but the effects are limited because the problem is different than those exercises can fully address. That's why I write about other things.
What disappoints me isn't that people don't follow my advice, because I love to see people discover things that I didn't know. What disappoints me is the attitude of helplessness. I don't know what, but something in our society must make people feel like they aren't capable of doing or changing anything when it comes to their own minds and bodies. I admire people who do incredible things while others told them they couldn't do it, not because of what they did but because of their spirit that wouldn't die. And really vision improvement is such a small thing compared to big feats.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
02-13-2016, 12:43 PM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2016, 12:43 PM by Kabuto.)
(02-13-2016, 12:05 PM)David Wrote: It sounds like you think the disorder is something that you got stuck with out of bad luck.
The disorder exists because you have created it and continue to. The visual system can take a huge amount of misuse, but at some point your constant misuse is so extreme that it can't compensate or keep up to fully do its job anymore.
The human body is amazing. There are millions of things that can go wrong all the time that would mean disaster, and it catches everything and keeps us alive despite things like all the toxins we ingest, the injuries we suffer, and all the new varieties of viruses and bacteria invading. The visual system is the same way, and it can accommodate a wide range of weird ways that people perceive the world around them and their patterns of looking at things, but ultimately there's a limit to what it can handle.
Exercises like palming and swinging have beneficial effects in certain circumstances, but the effects are limited because the problem is different than those exercises can fully address. That's why I write about other things.
What disappoints me isn't that people don't follow my advice, because I love to see people discover things that I didn't know. What disappoints me is the attitude of helplessness. I don't know what, but something in our society must make people feel like they aren't capable of doing or changing anything when it comes to their own minds and bodies. I admire people who do incredible things while others told them they couldn't do it, not because of what they did but because of their spirit that wouldn't die. And really vision improvement is such a small thing compared to big feats.
Believe me, I WANT to change. And I have been trying and open minded. If there is a way to achieve this, then please- by all means, tell me.
Don't blame all people with sight problems for their lack of effort, or willpower- frankly, I find that cruel.
Sure, if you want my opinion, my best suggestion is to start with my last several blog posts, and I'd be happy to answer questions in that context. I'm not able to communicate what to do in a few sentences without that context, because it will be misleading.
Effort or willpower is not going to improve your vision. But one of the main things you need is the belief you can do it. Your subconscious needs firm affirmation. I don't believe in the danger of "false hope". If everyone avoided false hope, nobody would ever try to do anything that takes time.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
I think the problem a lot of people might have is that even if there is a clear flash from time to time it doesn't last. We might be able to say that we need to create a habit but I am not sure about this.
Personally speaking I can say that I know what it is about and I do know how perfect vision is. The thing is that I can get close to it but it doesn't stick. I am not sure how to keep my mind seeing clear all the time.
I can imagine clear a lot too but interestingly only a small spot and the rest around is very blurry or not in my awareness. It doesn't last long though and I am losing my mental attention because I am starting to stare. The dodging that is described in the Bates book seems to help a little bit but I am not sure about a few aspects here.
I am able to shift into another mental "mode". I am more concentrated on one spot in that moment and the image in the eccentric field is just there. I realised something though and that is that if my vision isn't perfect the eccentric field isn't perfect too. It is kind of distorted and not in the size it should be.
This field fluctuates very powerfully. It is distracting because my mind tries to see all at once. The question is if this is going to "click in" one day soon because I am able to get closer and closer to it but something is still missing because I am not fully in my mind so it starts pulling me back into the blur.
When is the sight perfect? If it is automatic or is there something else to it? And what if I am consciously blinking? How is the sight still going to stay there? How can I keep this way of seeing forever and to what degree does the imagination part play a role in keeping the image consciously there because that is the issue I am dealing with. It is no habit and I can't keep it there longer than a few seconds.
02-14-2016, 09:24 AM (This post was last modified: 02-16-2016, 03:16 PM by David.)
Martin,
One thing that struck me from what you said is your mind tries to see it all at once. Actually that's mostly a good thing, as I'll try to explain.
First, consider how you operate when you're doing something where you are so occupied with a task that you don't have time to think about how you're using your eyes. Walking to the kitchen and opening the cupboard, for example. You know where the kitchen and cupboard are, but still, you use your eyes a lot to avoid obstacles, make your way into the kitchen, judge distance, reach out and precisely grab the knob, and open the cupboard. Your vision serves you really well in helping you do all that smoothly and easily.
On the other hand, if do this task while concentrating on good vision habits like seeing the center of your vision, the whole task would have been more awkward, right?
So it's great when people are willing to change how their vision works, but it's also easy to go too far in rejecting your current way of seeing. Some of the habits are very good and natural, and it's just a minority part of the whole habit of operation that is flawed. That small flawed part of the habit has a big effect on the eyes' focus, especially long term, so it's easy to want to reject too much of it.
And even Bates didn't warn against seeing everything in the visual field at once. That's normal. It's just that the center should have more attention than you probably devote to it. But in your case that might not be exactly true, because of the way you've been practicing seeing small parts.
So that's why I suggest the types of exercises that have to do with visualization, belief, thinking of things as already in your head, etc, because they don't risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These types of exercises encourage the whole system to work through affirmation, challenge, encouragement, and synthesizing everything, rather than rejecting any parts or trying to assert too much control like a clueless factory supervisor trying to show a skilled worker how to use a machine when he already knows how to do it way better.
So part of it is me just being more into that kind of stuff, but there is a method to my madness!
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
As an aside, I want to point out that Martin's reply above has enough detail to give us something to work with because he poured his thoughts out. Without having something more detailed like that to go off of, it's hard for any of us to suggest something that might apply well to you that isn't already standard advice. Reading some details from you at least gets our minds working and helps us think of something to suggest. So it's not that nobody wants to help, it's just that it's hard to think of anything else without more information. Make sense?
A lot of times I've written a few paragraphs of advice via email and never hear from that person again, and I have to assume I wasted my time. And then I sometimes end up treating everyone the same via email, giving short responses, or I give no response at all, including people who might stick with it and appreciate the help, so it isn't fair to them. So that's my fault, and I need to work out a better system. Actually nowadays most people post on here or the Facebook group, so it's not a common issue for me, but when it happens once in a while I'm reminded again of it. Anyway, if the site gets a lot more visitors when I start doing some heavy advertising and SEO this year, it might turn into an issue.
That happens sometimes here on the forum too, where new members usually disappear after asking a couple questions, but at least here other people can read the replies too. All types of forums are like that, people joining and leaving all the time, so it's to be expected I guess.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
I am going to be smoother and visualise more combined with a little bit of shifting while imagining maybe that is doing the deal. I guess that I am just losing the image because the shifting is not fully engadged in a subconscious way so I am going to swing mentally while imagining.
The reason the disorder is so hard to fix completely is because of the assymetric nature of out enviornment. We expose ourselves to horribly close distances without regular enough distance vivsion to clear it before ciliary myopia becomes asial myopia. Myopia is by definition the inability to focus on infinity. One over infinity is zero and vice versa and it would be nice if we had infinite or much closer to infinite distances to reverese axial myopia, like say a detailed fishermans net that stretches all the way to the moon, but we don't, The horizons we are exposed to on our planet aren't the reciprocal to the too close distances that trip us up.
The good news is I firmly beliieve that no matter how far back you are, you can get down to -1 and get your license vision restriction removed if you do it right.
Ok another question: Let's assume that I am able to imagine what is in front of me and it gets clearer because of that: how can I expand that to 20/20 and how can I avoid that I am automatically looking with eccentric fixation and trying to keep looking at one spot while trying to imagine it perfectly?
If I don't try to stay in one spot and I am just seeing the letter my eyes shift more and it gets a lot better but how can I avoid the staring once and for all because this hinders me?
Another thing I was wondering is why I am more aware of the image I see in front of me but at the same time less aware of other things (sounds and so on)? Is this just till I get more used to it because it is such an unusual feeling and my mind runs on high speed when I imagine the image better but it is so difficult to keep it up?
Your interest and attention should drive your eyes. When you imagine what a letter or detail might look like, your eyes should more or less look at that spot in response, to collect more data. But the image you see is only in your mind, whether your eyes are looking at that particular detail or not. So resist the temptation to sort of "check" to see if your vision is clear, because there's no need to check when you're focusing on visualizing or imagining it clearer. In checking it for clarity too soon, you generally shut off the part of your mind that is helping create the image, including focusing your eyes.
I'm not sure if you mean keep "looking at one spot" as in one spot at a time without changing frequently, but if so, keep it constantly changing. You only need an instant to imagine each spot. If it's clearer, move on. If it isn't, move on.
Being more aware of what you're focusing on is normal, to some extent, as long as it isn't forced. You can also force attention in this way, but when you do that with your eyes it just leads to strain. Sometimes people working on improving their vision will actually strain their eyes more than ever in practicing what they think of as central fixation or similar concepts regarding the center of vision, when the change they needed to make is much more subtle and not necessarily one they can feel physically until afterwards.
And I don't know, just another random thought that may or may not apply - If your vision becomes distorted, or worse, that's the most important time to let it go and not try to do anything to make it clearer, such as with the idea that you have to at least get your vision back to the base level that it was at before. If it gets worse and it doesn't seem to be caused by any straining of the eyes, it might be a sign that you let go of it, and from there it's free for your subconscious to take control of it. So sometimes it has to get worse to get better.
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Letting go seems to be a great way of getting to clearer vision but it isn't perfect yet. I am not sure if this is because of the eye chart because I am kind of trying to read the letter at the 20/20 line and I am therefore looking at the edges of the letter to figure out what it is for a letter but I guess I know what you mean on how not to do it.
Just wondering to what degree stinging is normal when letting go? My sight gets better but still not perfect and the stinging is very strong espacially in my right eye that is worse then my left eye.
My sight doesn't get worse when it stings but it is so strong that I have to close my eyes so I don't really know if this is a positive sign or not.
.
