Possible breakthrough?

[david01]

Hello all, 

I have returned from the dead of about 5 years ago when I initially started using the Bate's Method/David's Method in attempt to reverse my myopia. Back then I was 18 at the time and didn't really have much on my plate so I had alot of spare time to practice. I had so much time that at the very start I was dedicating 3 hours plus per day practicing central fixation and palming etc. As a result, within 4 months of starting I had great success and achieved 20/20 vision in my right eye and just slightly worse in my left (confirmed by the optometrist when I went - who actually then told me to ditch my old glasses haha). However, throughout all this time, it felt like I had learned to manipulate my eyesight rather than actually "see" like a person with normal vision. 

So a few weeks and then months passed and then I felt like I had no motivation to do those exercises anymore because I had been told I don't need glasses anymore. All that time I had given myself a false goal. Told myself that excellent visual acuity was the result of good eyesight when it is in fact just a side effect.** . Needless to say, my eyesight started to deteriorate bit by bit over time and it became even harder to improve again because I knew all the effort I put in initially went to waste anyway. I started having more things to deal with so I also didn't have enough time anymore to practice the way I used to. Over the last few years I sort of fell into a minor depression (dropped out of last year of uni but thankfully I am now allowed to reattend this year) and that brings me to just a few months ago when I realised I needed to get my life back on track.

One of the things that has always been top of my bucket list is to restore my eyesight. Hence, over the last few months I was trying to get back into it again. I kept thinking to myself there has to be a way to achieve normal vision without dedicating ridiculous time and focus each day to do it. That's when I started looking at some of the blog posts on here again. The most interesting ones to me were the recent ones discussing how myopees hide away and that they are literally not allowing their eyes to see. I tried the suggested approach of trying to focus on a particular body part that feels good for example placing your focus on the spine/heart whenever I was in a stressful situation. Whilst this gave me some initial success, my eyesight still fluctuated alot because I hadn't adjusted the way I was USING my eyes.

That brings me to the important part. When I read through those blog posts they also spoke about how myopees have a sort of soulless stare when looking at objects and other things. So a few days back I thought to myself, "Well what if I just do everything in my power to shift my focus whenever I catch myself staring". I've come to realise in those few days that even though we hear about it all the time that myopees stare too much. We don't consider it enough as a simple solution to fixing the problem. I think part of the problem is we don't realise how much that we are staring.

The problem with staring is not only that it affects the image focus on the retina, it also tenses up the muscles at the back of the eye which causes them to be less fluid in movement as they are supposed to be and keep the eye in a shape where it isn't focusing the image on the retina. For myopees, scanning a room with their eyes in different directions seems to take effort but for normal people that is just how their eyes normally function: they enter a new environment, their eyes quickly scan many objects one at a time to gain a crisp picture of their surroundings. 

How I have been seeing like a normal person in the past few days? I started by committing to the mindset of whenever I catch myself staring at something, I MUST shift my focus to elsewhere. Now initially this might take some thinking about, but over time I'm finding that my eyes are getting used to this new way of seeing! And the thing is it has only been 2 days yet my eyes feel more healthy and alive than ever before. Let's think about what's happening here...Basically by adopting this mindset you are constantly practicing the exercise of shifting and you will also begin to unconsciously practice central fixation. This will take some getting used to if you have been used to staring for so long but it just feels so right and it must be how normal people see. And if you don't like looking at peoples faces in crowds look at their shoes, shift from one person's to anothers. Myopees tend to think that the world is all looking at them, but when you start seeing in this way you realise that people are only looking at you for a split second to take in their environment which is what you should be doing aswell. We are all out for ourselves afterall, we have eyes to keep us safe and prevent us from harm.

What I've noticed? The major thing that has occurred is that my eyes no longer feel tense even when looking at screens for large periods of time, EVERYTHING seems BRIGHTER - yep that's the biggy, the whole world seems like a brighter place and even my night vision has drastically improved. I felt like before I was looking at everything through sunglasses. My memory seems to have improved dratically since I'm actually taking in my surroundings now and not living like a zombie. My overall mental sharpness in dealing with social/cognitive situations seems much better too! Bright light isn't so harsh on my eyes. When you can't see something? Don't worry when you can't see something, even people with good eyesight don't always catch things right away, just AVOID STARING to try and see what it is, instead shift around a bit but you have to make sure that when you are shifting, your focus goes with it. This is key, my brain has started to feel more alive in the past few days because I have been staying clear in my intent when looking at my surroundings. 

I want to stress again at the end here. Think about an eye that is constantly staring - you might not even realise you are doing it. There's no way that an eye constantly staring can relax because the muscles are in a fixed position which puts the eye in a fixed position which it is not designed to be in.
Also, it's like 3AM where I live right now, I'm sorry if this all sounds like jibberish or repeated ideas but there's just something about my approach this time that feels so natural and I wanted to put as much effort in as I could to share it with you guys! Please give this a try and let me know if it helps you guys too! Remember don't focus on the result of good vision - it will come, focus on avoiding staring at all costs. There's always some alternative thing or spot on a picture to look at. By doing this for a few days my eyesight has already improved tremendously in every aspect. If you guys want any clarification on anything I'll be happy to try help you out, I really hope this helps some of you like it is helping me right now. It probably wasn't the best idea to do all this so late at night but I had to get it out there as it is genuinely the best approach I have made so far in terms of efficiency and side benefits. Hopefully you guys get the main idea 

**(This is a big hurdle in people achieving 20/20 vision again imo. You are constantly trying to measure how good your eyes can see something at a distance. How can you concentrate to see things properly and use your eyes properly if you are trying to take a snapshot in your head and compare the quality of that snapshot to past images of a similar distance. Good vision should be something that is noticed.)

[Nancy]

Hello all, 

I have returned from the dead of about 5 years ago when I initially started using the Bate's Method/David's Method in attempt to reverse my myopia. Back then I was 18 at the time and didn't really have much on my plate so I had alot of spare time to practice. I had so much time that at the very start I was dedicating 3 hours plus per day practicing central fixation and palming etc. As a result, within 4 months of starting I had great success and achieved 20/20 vision in my right eye and just slightly worse in my left (confirmed by the optometrist when I went - who actually then told me to ditch my old glasses haha). However, throughout all this time, it felt like I had learned to manipulate my eyesight rather than actually "see" like a person with normal vision. 

So a few weeks and then months passed and then I felt like I had no motivation to do those exercises anymore because I had been told I don't need glasses anymore. All that time I had given myself a false goal. Told myself that excellent visual acuity was the result of good eyesight when it is in fact just a side effect.** . Needless to say, my eyesight started to deteriorate bit by bit over time and it became even harder to improve again because I knew all the effort I put in initially went to waste anyway. I started having more things to deal with so I also didn't have enough time anymore to practice the way I used to. Over the last few years I sort of fell into a minor depression (dropped out of last year of uni but thankfully I am now allowed to reattend this year) and that brings me to just a few months ago when I realised I needed to get my life back on track.

One of the things that has always been top of my bucket list is to restore my eyesight. Hence, over the last few months I was trying to get back into it again. I kept thinking to myself there has to be a way to achieve normal vision without dedicating ridiculous time and focus each day to do it. That's when I started looking at some of the blog posts on here again. The most interesting ones to me were the recent ones discussing how myopees hide away and that they are literally not allowing their eyes to see. I tried the suggested approach of trying to focus on a particular body part that feels good for example placing your focus on the spine/heart whenever I was in a stressful situation. Whilst this gave me some initial success, my eyesight still fluctuated alot because I hadn't adjusted the way I was USING my eyes.

That brings me to the important part. When I read through those blog posts they also spoke about how myopees have a sort of soulless stare when looking at objects and other things. So a few days back I thought to myself, "Well what if I just do everything in my power to shift my focus whenever I catch myself staring". I've come to realise in those few days that even though we hear about it all the time that myopees stare too much. We don't consider it enough as a simple solution to fixing the problem. I think part of the problem is we don't realise how much that we are staring.

The problem with staring is not only that it affects the image focus on the retina, it also tenses up the muscles at the back of the eye which causes them to be less fluid in movement as they are supposed to be and keep the eye in a shape where it isn't focusing the image on the retina. For myopees, scanning a room with their eyes in different directions seems to take effort but for normal people that is just how their eyes normally function: they enter a new environment, their eyes quickly scan many objects one at a time to gain a crisp picture of their surroundings. 

How I have been seeing like a normal person in the past few days? I started by committing to the mindset of whenever I catch myself staring at something, I MUST shift my focus to elsewhere. Now initially this might take some thinking about, but over time I'm finding that my eyes are getting used to this new way of seeing! And the thing is it has only been 2 days yet my eyes feel more healthy and alive than ever before. Let's think about what's happening here...Basically by adopting this mindset you are constantly practicing the exercise of shifting and you will also begin to unconsciously practice central fixation. This will take some getting used to if you have been used to staring for so long but it just feels so right and it must be how normal people see. And if you don't like looking at peoples faces in crowds look at their shoes, shift from one person's to anothers. Myopees tend to think that the world is all looking at them, but when you start seeing in this way you realise that people are only looking at you for a split second to take in their environment which is what you should be doing aswell. We are all out for ourselves afterall, we have eyes to keep us safe and prevent us from harm.

What I've noticed? The major thing that has occurred is that my eyes no longer feel tense even when looking at screens for large periods of time, EVERYTHING seems BRIGHTER - yep that's the biggy, the whole world seems like a brighter place and even my night vision has drastically improved. I felt like before I was looking at everything through sunglasses. My memory seems to have improved dratically since I'm actually taking in my surroundings now and not living like a zombie. My overall mental sharpness in dealing with social/cognitive situations seems much better too! Bright light isn't so harsh on my eyes. When you can't see something? Don't worry when you can't see something, even people with good eyesight don't always catch things right away, just AVOID STARING to try and see what it is, instead shift around a bit but you have to make sure that when you are shifting, your focus goes with it. This is key, my brain has started to feel more alive in the past few days because I have been staying clear in my intent when looking at my surroundings. 

I want to stress again at the end here. Think about an eye that is constantly staring - you might not even realise you are doing it. There's no way that an eye constantly staring can relax because the muscles are in a fixed position which puts the eye in a fixed position which it is not designed to be in.
Also, it's like 3AM where I live right now, I'm sorry if this all sounds like jibberish or repeated ideas but there's just something about my approach this time that feels so natural and I wanted to put as much effort in as I could to share it with you guys! Please give this a try and let me know if it helps you guys too! Remember don't focus on the result of good vision - it will come, focus on avoiding staring at all costs. There's always some alternative thing or spot on a picture to look at. By doing this for a few days my eyesight has already improved tremendously in every aspect. If you guys want any clarification on anything I'll be happy to try help you out, I really hope this helps some of you like it is helping me right now. It probably wasn't the best idea to do all this so late at night but I had to get it out there as it is genuinely the best approach I have made so far in terms of efficiency and side benefits. Hopefully you guys get the main idea 

**(This is a big hurdle in people achieving 20/20 vision again imo. You are constantly trying to measure how good your eyes can see something at a distance. How can you concentrate to see things properly and use your eyes properly if you are trying to take a snapshot in your head and compare the quality of that snapshot to past images of a similar distance. Good vision should be something that is noticed.)

Thanks, and I'm very happy for you! My version of staring has been not moving my attention, or moving my gaze without my brain being connected to what my eyes are pointing at, that is not really looking. I still catch myself at this bad old habit several times a day, and patiently redirect myself. Keep up the good work, and keep letting us know how it goes.

[david01]

Hello all, 

I have returned from the dead of about 5 years ago when I initially started using the Bate's Method/David's Method in attempt to reverse my myopia. Back then I was 18 at the time and didn't really have much on my plate so I had alot of spare time to practice. I had so much time that at the very start I was dedicating 3 hours plus per day practicing central fixation and palming etc. As a result, within 4 months of starting I had great success and achieved 20/20 vision in my right eye and just slightly worse in my left (confirmed by the optometrist when I went - who actually then told me to ditch my old glasses haha). However, throughout all this time, it felt like I had learned to manipulate my eyesight rather than actually "see" like a person with normal vision. 

So a few weeks and then months passed and then I felt like I had no motivation to do those exercises anymore because I had been told I don't need glasses anymore. All that time I had given myself a false goal. Told myself that excellent visual acuity was the result of good eyesight when it is in fact just a side effect.** . Needless to say, my eyesight started to deteriorate bit by bit over time and it became even harder to improve again because I knew all the effort I put in initially went to waste anyway. I started having more things to deal with so I also didn't have enough time anymore to practice the way I used to. Over the last few years I sort of fell into a minor depression (dropped out of last year of uni but thankfully I am now allowed to reattend this year) and that brings me to just a few months ago when I realised I needed to get my life back on track.

One of the things that has always been top of my bucket list is to restore my eyesight. Hence, over the last few months I was trying to get back into it again. I kept thinking to myself there has to be a way to achieve normal vision without dedicating ridiculous time and focus each day to do it. That's when I started looking at some of the blog posts on here again. The most interesting ones to me were the recent ones discussing how myopees hide away and that they are literally not allowing their eyes to see. I tried the suggested approach of trying to focus on a particular body part that feels good for example placing your focus on the spine/heart whenever I was in a stressful situation. Whilst this gave me some initial success, my eyesight still fluctuated alot because I hadn't adjusted the way I was USING my eyes.

That brings me to the important part. When I read through those blog posts they also spoke about how myopees have a sort of soulless stare when looking at objects and other things. So a few days back I thought to myself, "Well what if I just do everything in my power to shift my focus whenever I catch myself staring". I've come to realise in those few days that even though we hear about it all the time that myopees stare too much. We don't consider it enough as a simple solution to fixing the problem. I think part of the problem is we don't realise how much that we are staring.

The problem with staring is not only that it affects the image focus on the retina, it also tenses up the muscles at the back of the eye which causes them to be less fluid in movement as they are supposed to be and keep the eye in a shape where it isn't focusing the image on the retina. For myopees, scanning a room with their eyes in different directions seems to take effort but for normal people that is just how their eyes normally function: they enter a new environment, their eyes quickly scan many objects one at a time to gain a crisp picture of their surroundings. 

How I have been seeing like a normal person in the past few days? I started by committing to the mindset of whenever I catch myself staring at something, I MUST shift my focus to elsewhere. Now initially this might take some thinking about, but over time I'm finding that my eyes are getting used to this new way of seeing! And the thing is it has only been 2 days yet my eyes feel more healthy and alive than ever before. Let's think about what's happening here...Basically by adopting this mindset you are constantly practicing the exercise of shifting and you will also begin to unconsciously practice central fixation. This will take some getting used to if you have been used to staring for so long but it just feels so right and it must be how normal people see. And if you don't like looking at peoples faces in crowds look at their shoes, shift from one person's to anothers. Myopees tend to think that the world is all looking at them, but when you start seeing in this way you realise that people are only looking at you for a split second to take in their environment which is what you should be doing aswell. We are all out for ourselves afterall, we have eyes to keep us safe and prevent us from harm.

What I've noticed? The major thing that has occurred is that my eyes no longer feel tense even when looking at screens for large periods of time, EVERYTHING seems BRIGHTER - yep that's the biggy, the whole world seems like a brighter place and even my night vision has drastically improved. I felt like before I was looking at everything through sunglasses. My memory seems to have improved dratically since I'm actually taking in my surroundings now and not living like a zombie. My overall mental sharpness in dealing with social/cognitive situations seems much better too! Bright light isn't so harsh on my eyes. When you can't see something? Don't worry when you can't see something, even people with good eyesight don't always catch things right away, just AVOID STARING to try and see what it is, instead shift around a bit but you have to make sure that when you are shifting, your focus goes with it. This is key, my brain has started to feel more alive in the past few days because I have been staying clear in my intent when looking at my surroundings. 

I want to stress again at the end here. Think about an eye that is constantly staring - you might not even realise you are doing it. There's no way that an eye constantly staring can relax because the muscles are in a fixed position which puts the eye in a fixed position which it is not designed to be in.
Also, it's like 3AM where I live right now, I'm sorry if this all sounds like jibberish or repeated ideas but there's just something about my approach this time that feels so natural and I wanted to put as much effort in as I could to share it with you guys! Please give this a try and let me know if it helps you guys too! Remember don't focus on the result of good vision - it will come, focus on avoiding staring at all costs. There's always some alternative thing or spot on a picture to look at. By doing this for a few days my eyesight has already improved tremendously in every aspect. If you guys want any clarification on anything I'll be happy to try help you out, I really hope this helps some of you like it is helping me right now. It probably wasn't the best idea to do all this so late at night but I had to get it out there as it is genuinely the best approach I have made so far in terms of efficiency and side benefits. Hopefully you guys get the main idea 

**(This is a big hurdle in people achieving 20/20 vision again imo. You are constantly trying to measure how good your eyes can see something at a distance. How can you concentrate to see things properly and use your eyes properly if you are trying to take a snapshot in your head and compare the quality of that snapshot to past images of a similar distance. Good vision should be something that is noticed.)

Thanks, and I'm very happy for you! My version of staring has been not moving my attention, or moving my gaze without my brain being connected to what my eyes are pointing at, that is not really looking. I still catch myself at this bad old habit several times a day, and patiently redirect myself. Keep up the good work, and keep letting us know how it goes.

Thank you! 

Yes, it is that which is the problem. When I say don't stare, that doesn't mean to have your eyes dart off in all different directions - that will only overwhelm you. However, the more natural your eyesight becomes the easier this will eventually be to do (not that this is the correct way to see). 

I've realised that seeing is like connecting the dots to form a picture. As we already know, we see most clearly at the centre of our vision. But when we stare we aren't taking advantage of our central vision to form a mental picture of our surroundings. Essentially, when we stare we are taking one snapshot image with our eyes and THEN scanning it in our head. Whilst we are trying to analyse what we just saw in our head, our eyes are sending us more information so we get overwhelmed and stressed which causes the muscles at the back of the eyes to tense up.

It is my belief they need to go together, when you are using your central vision you are taking many snapshots at once (of different points around the target object). To do this, you have to constantly be thinking of the next thing in the room or next part of the picture which you want a clearer perspective on. This keeps your brain in sync with your eyes and your attention and concentration will improve aswell. For example, if I am looking at my lecturer's face from a distance, I'm not really looking at their face. I'm maybe looking at one of their eyes, then their nose, then the frame of their glasses, the reflection of the light on the glass lens, but this process happens so quickly that it seems like I am doing it all at once - which is why I think we forget how to see, because there really isn't much to the process so we take it for granted.

[Nancy]

Hello all, 

I have returned from the dead of about 5 years ago when I initially started using the Bate's Method/David's Method in attempt to reverse my myopia. Back then I was 18 at the time and didn't really have much on my plate so I had alot of spare time to practice. I had so much time that at the very start I was dedicating 3 hours plus per day practicing central fixation and palming etc. As a result, within 4 months of starting I had great success and achieved 20/20 vision in my right eye and just slightly worse in my left (confirmed by the optometrist when I went - who actually then told me to ditch my old glasses haha). However, throughout all this time, it felt like I had learned to manipulate my eyesight rather than actually "see" like a person with normal vision. 

So a few weeks and then months passed and then I felt like I had no motivation to do those exercises anymore because I had been told I don't need glasses anymore. All that time I had given myself a false goal. Told myself that excellent visual acuity was the result of good eyesight when it is in fact just a side effect.** . Needless to say, my eyesight started to deteriorate bit by bit over time and it became even harder to improve again because I knew all the effort I put in initially went to waste anyway. I started having more things to deal with so I also didn't have enough time anymore to practice the way I used to. Over the last few years I sort of fell into a minor depression (dropped out of last year of uni but thankfully I am now allowed to reattend this year) and that brings me to just a few months ago when I realised I needed to get my life back on track.

One of the things that has always been top of my bucket list is to restore my eyesight. Hence, over the last few months I was trying to get back into it again. I kept thinking to myself there has to be a way to achieve normal vision without dedicating ridiculous time and focus each day to do it. That's when I started looking at some of the blog posts on here again. The most interesting ones to me were the recent ones discussing how myopees hide away and that they are literally not allowing their eyes to see. I tried the suggested approach of trying to focus on a particular body part that feels good for example placing your focus on the spine/heart whenever I was in a stressful situation. Whilst this gave me some initial success, my eyesight still fluctuated alot because I hadn't adjusted the way I was USING my eyes.

That brings me to the important part. When I read through those blog posts they also spoke about how myopees have a sort of soulless stare when looking at objects and other things. So a few days back I thought to myself, "Well what if I just do everything in my power to shift my focus whenever I catch myself staring". I've come to realise in those few days that even though we hear about it all the time that myopees stare too much. We don't consider it enough as a simple solution to fixing the problem. I think part of the problem is we don't realise how much that we are staring.

The problem with staring is not only that it affects the image focus on the retina, it also tenses up the muscles at the back of the eye which causes them to be less fluid in movement as they are supposed to be and keep the eye in a shape where it isn't focusing the image on the retina. For myopees, scanning a room with their eyes in different directions seems to take effort but for normal people that is just how their eyes normally function: they enter a new environment, their eyes quickly scan many objects one at a time to gain a crisp picture of their surroundings. 

How I have been seeing like a normal person in the past few days? I started by committing to the mindset of whenever I catch myself staring at something, I MUST shift my focus to elsewhere. Now initially this might take some thinking about, but over time I'm finding that my eyes are getting used to this new way of seeing! And the thing is it has only been 2 days yet my eyes feel more healthy and alive than ever before. Let's think about what's happening here...Basically by adopting this mindset you are constantly practicing the exercise of shifting and you will also begin to unconsciously practice central fixation. This will take some getting used to if you have been used to staring for so long but it just feels so right and it must be how normal people see. And if you don't like looking at peoples faces in crowds look at their shoes, shift from one person's to anothers. Myopees tend to think that the world is all looking at them, but when you start seeing in this way you realise that people are only looking at you for a split second to take in their environment which is what you should be doing aswell. We are all out for ourselves afterall, we have eyes to keep us safe and prevent us from harm.

What I've noticed? The major thing that has occurred is that my eyes no longer feel tense even when looking at screens for large periods of time, EVERYTHING seems BRIGHTER - yep that's the biggy, the whole world seems like a brighter place and even my night vision has drastically improved. I felt like before I was looking at everything through sunglasses. My memory seems to have improved dratically since I'm actually taking in my surroundings now and not living like a zombie. My overall mental sharpness in dealing with social/cognitive situations seems much better too! Bright light isn't so harsh on my eyes. When you can't see something? Don't worry when you can't see something, even people with good eyesight don't always catch things right away, just AVOID STARING to try and see what it is, instead shift around a bit but you have to make sure that when you are shifting, your focus goes with it. This is key, my brain has started to feel more alive in the past few days because I have been staying clear in my intent when looking at my surroundings. 

I want to stress again at the end here. Think about an eye that is constantly staring - you might not even realise you are doing it. There's no way that an eye constantly staring can relax because the muscles are in a fixed position which puts the eye in a fixed position which it is not designed to be in.
Also, it's like 3AM where I live right now, I'm sorry if this all sounds like jibberish or repeated ideas but there's just something about my approach this time that feels so natural and I wanted to put as much effort in as I could to share it with you guys! Please give this a try and let me know if it helps you guys too! Remember don't focus on the result of good vision - it will come, focus on avoiding staring at all costs. There's always some alternative thing or spot on a picture to look at. By doing this for a few days my eyesight has already improved tremendously in every aspect. If you guys want any clarification on anything I'll be happy to try help you out, I really hope this helps some of you like it is helping me right now. It probably wasn't the best idea to do all this so late at night but I had to get it out there as it is genuinely the best approach I have made so far in terms of efficiency and side benefits. Hopefully you guys get the main idea 

**(This is a big hurdle in people achieving 20/20 vision again imo. You are constantly trying to measure how good your eyes can see something at a distance. How can you concentrate to see things properly and use your eyes properly if you are trying to take a snapshot in your head and compare the quality of that snapshot to past images of a similar distance. Good vision should be something that is noticed.)

Thanks, and I'm very happy for you! My version of staring has been not moving my attention, or moving my gaze without my brain being connected to what my eyes are pointing at, that is not really looking. I still catch myself at this bad old habit several times a day, and patiently redirect myself. Keep up the good work, and keep letting us know how it goes.

Thank you! 

Yes, it is that which is the problem. When I say don't stare, that doesn't mean to have your eyes dart off in all different directions - that will only overwhelm you. However, the more natural your eyesight becomes the easier this will eventually be to do (not that this is the correct way to see). 

I've realised that seeing is like connecting the dots to form a picture. As we already know, we see most clearly at the centre of our vision. But when we stare we aren't taking advantage of our central vision to form a mental picture of our surroundings. Essentially, when we stare we are taking one snapshot image with our eyes and THEN scanning it in our head. Whilst we are trying to analyse what we just saw in our head, our eyes are sending us more information so we get overwhelmed and stressed which causes the muscles at the back of the eyes to tense up.

It is my belief they need to go together, when you are using your central vision you are taking many snapshots at once (of different points around the target object). To do this, you have to constantly be thinking of the next thing in the room or next part of the picture which you want a clearer perspective on. This keeps your brain in sync with your eyes and your attention and concentration will improve aswell. For example, if I am looking at my lecturer's face from a distance, I'm not really looking at their face. I'm maybe looking at one of their eyes, then their nose, then the frame of their glasses, the reflection of the light on the glass lens, but this process happens so quickly that it seems like I am doing it all at once - which is why I think we forget how to see, because there really isn't much to the process so we take it for granted.

Yes, exactly, about taking a visual snapshot and looking at that in my brain instead of remaining connected to my environment visually. I've written about this many times, and realize now that's the way I "saw" for a lot of my life in thick glasses or contacts. I was very reluctant, often afraid, to reach out.

[david01]

Thanks, and I'm very happy for you! My version of staring has been not moving my attention, or moving my gaze without my brain being connected to what my eyes are pointing at, that is not really looking. I still catch myself at this bad old habit several times a day, and patiently redirect myself. Keep up the good work, and keep letting us know how it goes.

Thank you! 

Yes, it is that which is the problem. When I say don't stare, that doesn't mean to have your eyes dart off in all different directions - that will only overwhelm you. However, the more natural your eyesight becomes the easier this will eventually be to do (not that this is the correct way to see). 

I've realised that seeing is like connecting the dots to form a picture. As we already know, we see most clearly at the centre of our vision. But when we stare we aren't taking advantage of our central vision to form a mental picture of our surroundings. Essentially, when we stare we are taking one snapshot image with our eyes and THEN scanning it in our head. Whilst we are trying to analyse what we just saw in our head, our eyes are sending us more information so we get overwhelmed and stressed which causes the muscles at the back of the eyes to tense up.

It is my belief they need to go together, when you are using your central vision you are taking many snapshots at once (of different points around the target object). To do this, you have to constantly be thinking of the next thing in the room or next part of the picture which you want a clearer perspective on. This keeps your brain in sync with your eyes and your attention and concentration will improve aswell. For example, if I am looking at my lecturer's face from a distance, I'm not really looking at their face. I'm maybe looking at one of their eyes, then their nose, then the frame of their glasses, the reflection of the light on the glass lens, but this process happens so quickly that it seems like I am doing it all at once - which is why I think we forget how to see, because there really isn't much to the process so we take it for granted.

Yes, exactly, about taking a visual snapshot and looking at that in my brain instead of remaining connected to my environment visually. I've written about this many times, and realize now that's the way I "saw" for a lot of my life in thick glasses or contacts. I was very reluctant, often afraid, to reach out.

Yeah. It's important that you are genuinely interested in what is around you. That you want to take in the world no matter how it looks - blurred/clear. 

I was on a bus yesterday and because my eyesight had been brilliant the past few days and I hadn't had alot of sleep that night and it was a duller day, I noticed that I couldn't see things I usually could in the preceding days. So I started trying to overdo shifting for a while wondering what was going wrong? Well Obviously, I was concerned about my eyesight not being "as good" as before so my brain started subconsciously focusing on results i.e. good eyesight. This meant that I was using my eyes to control what I was looking at - trying to look far away as often as possible. In the previous days, I was focusing solely on keeping my brain attached to what I was seeing which meant that my brain was sort of leading the process and controlling my eyes. When the brain is controlling the process, it makes the fine adjustments in the eyes necessary for clear vision. On the other hand, when you start consciously trying to use your eyes first to look at something you know in your head is already there, you are detaching your brain from the process as it is preoccupied with thinking about the next thing you are going to look at. Therefore, I got myself in that vicious cycle of trying harder and harder but getting worse and worse. 

I'd forgotten about the main goal of avoiding staring (keeping my brain attached to what I am looking at). When I adopt that goal into my head, it doesn't matter how good my eyesight is, therefore, I don't try so hard if I don't see something right away. My brain just registers what it can and moves on to the next thing beside it to keep building up the picture. 

When I adopt the goal into my head of improving my eyesight, it doesn't help too much because the brain is therefore always going to be trying to measure the success of that goal by moving the eyes in an unnatural way.

[David]

Wow, what a great post and thread! Welcome back!

It sounds like you've really got the hang of it. A few thoughts that your comments brought to mind -

Good eyesight is a process, and one result is good acuity. Some athletic trainers train their athletes to more and see quicker, to make decisions as quickly as possible. It's a totally natural thing to them, because they know that virtually everything in the athlete's performance can be trained to improve. They don't know much about myopia, technically, but from a training point of view they know how to improve visual-related skills, and those skills are really just things that people with good vision already do to some extent.

One of the frustrations people have is feeling like they're so far from doing things right, and good eyesight seems like some pipe dream. The fact is they already use their eyes right once in a while, and maybe even during a particular exercise they're doing really well, but they give it up too quickly or replace it with their old pattern, so it doesn't get a chance. And you see this in sports too. The coach will tell the athlete how the way he did that last thing was great. But the athlete doesn't totally understand it and was kind of instinctive about it, so it's hard for him to repeat it. Nevertheless, he already did it easily. It's mental.

Practicing something with the idea of "I'm doing this to improve my vision" is what maybe 99% of people do and part of why they fail. It doesn't sound like much difference, but the difference between that and "I'm using my vision in the best way I know how, right now and as often as I can," is huge. Exercises can demonstrate things, but embracing a better seeing process is the only way to get good vision beyond short spurts. Even people who are into self improvement can have a hard time with this, because while it's one thing to spend some time each day to eating right or doing yoga or going over goals, it's a whole different thing to change the way you walk or talk or think, all day long. So I recommend people try to step back and say, "Does this make sense? Is this how someone with good vision would see, all the time?", instead of doing something kind of weird and hoping it will pay off in good vision at some point. If it doesn't strike you as natural and as if it's something you used to do but sort of forgot, then it probably isn't right. Good vision is hard coded into the brain and does not really go away. It just has to be accessed.

[david01]

Wow, what a great post and thread! Welcome back!

It sounds like you've really got the hang of it. A few thoughts that your comments brought to mind -

Good eyesight is a process, and one result is good acuity. Some athletic trainers train their athletes to more and see quicker, to make decisions as quickly as possible. It's a totally natural thing to them, because they know that virtually everything in the athlete's performance can be trained to improve. They don't know much about myopia, technically, but from a training point of view they know how to improve visual-related skills, and those skills are really just things that people with good vision already do to some extent.

One of the frustrations people have is feeling like they're so far from doing things right, and good eyesight seems like some pipe dream. The fact is they already use their eyes right once in a while, and maybe even during a particular exercise they're doing really well, but they give it up too quickly or replace it with their old pattern, so it doesn't get a chance. And you see this in sports too. The coach will tell the athlete how the way he did that last thing was great. But the athlete doesn't totally understand it and was kind of instinctive about it, so it's hard for him to repeat it. Nevertheless, he already did it easily. It's mental.

Practicing something with the idea of "I'm doing this to improve my vision" is what maybe 99% of people do and part of why they fail. It doesn't sound like much difference, but the difference between that and "I'm using my vision in the best way I know how, right now and as often as I can," is huge. Exercises can demonstrate things, but embracing a better seeing process is the only way to get good vision beyond short spurts. Even people who are into self improvement can have a hard time with this, because while it's one thing to spend some time each day to eating right or doing yoga or going over goals, it's a whole different thing to change the way you walk or talk or think, all day long. So I recommend people try to step back and say, "Does this make sense? Is this how someone with good vision would see, all the time?", instead of doing something kind of weird and hoping it will pay off in good vision at some point. If it doesn't strike you as natural and as if it's something you used to do but sort of forgot, then it probably isn't right. Good vision is hard coded into the brain and does not really go away. It just has to be accessed.

Hi, thank you! 

I totally agree with all you said. And I like the thought of stopping for a second sometimes and thinking, to quote yourself,  "Does this make sense? Is this how someone with good vision would see, all the time?"

I think the key is in what you said, "Good vision is hard coded into the brain and does not really go away. It just has to be accessed." The brain is the one that actually does the seeing, not the eyes. It's about connecting your brain to the world again. Your brain knows best how to control your eyes but in stressful situations people start to try override this subconscious process to avoid making eye contact (to remain hidden), for example, and all of a sudden this becomes a habit and before you know it you are consciously controlling where your eyes are looking rather than looking where your brain naturally wants to see. As a result, your brain becomes more focused on where your eyes are looking rather than on what they are looking it. And this disconnects your brain from your surroundings.