Do you know what technique Bates thought was the best way of improving eyesight? By straining your eyes and making your vision WORSE! Read this, taken from the September, 1920 issue of Bates' Better Eyesight Magazine:
MAKE YOUR SIGHT WORSE
Strange as it may seem there is no better way of improving the sight than by making it worse. To see things worse when one is already seeing them badly requires mental control of a degree greater than that required to improve the sight. The importance of these facts is very great. When patients become able to lower their vision by conscious staring, they become better able to avoid unconscious staring. When they demonstrate by increasing their eccentric fixation that trying to see objects not regarded lowers the vision, they may stop trying to do the same thing unconsciously.
What is true of the sight is also true of the imagination and memory. If one's memory and imagination are imperfect, they can be improved by consciously making them worse than they are. Persons with imperfect sight never remember or imagine the letters on the test card as perfectly black and distinct, but to imagine them as grey and clouds is very difficult, or even impossible, and when a patient has done it, or tried to do it, he may become able to avoid the unconscious strain which has prevented him front forming mental pictures as black and distinct as the reality.
To make imperfect sight worse is always more difficult than to lower normal vision. In other words, to make a letter which already appears grey and indistinct noticeably more cloudy is harder than to blur a letter seen distinctly. To make an imperfect mental picture worse is harder than to blur a perfect one. Both practices require much effort, much hard disagreeable work; but they always, when successful, improve the memory, imagination and vision.
It's the only Bates technique that requires effort! I tried it and it actually makes me much more aware of what kind of strain I have in my eyes and entire body, which is very important in having mental control over the unconscious strain. I do have to admit it is very hard, and is very uncomfortable, but afterwards I relaxed and avoided what I was doing when I was straining and it was easier to obtain clear flashes! Maybe you guys should try this straining technique everyday right before the normal Bates techniques.
I have not tried it but it makes a lot of sense. To top off all the other counterinituitive things in the Bates method, this is one of them. It could work.
Bates says this too: "It is a truth that quick cures of myopia can only be obtained by persons who have the ability to make the myopia worse."
One time I stared at the eye chart for just a few seconds and I suffered mental depression, so I think you should be careful in demonstrating relaxation to yourself immediately afterwards.
It seems like all the quick, permanent cures patients got from Bates were accompanied by demonstration of the facts of strain vs. relaxation.
Jason Sperry Wrote:When they demonstrate by increasing their eccentric fixation that trying to see objects not regarded lowers the vision, they may stop trying to do the same thing unconsciously.
does that mean that your eyes look at an object but your attention is diverted to other objects?
Yep, and eccentric fixation is when you actually see those objects that you're not looking directly at better than the object you're looking at in the center of your vision.
Just get a minus lens 3 diopters stronger than
necessary -- and wear it all the time.
Want to know exactly what will happen?
Look at the blue-tint animation of the eye when
you do this:
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Neat!
In about six months, your eyes will go down by
about -2 diopters.
This is EXACTLY what Dr. Bates said about the minus,
when a person is at 20/70.
No wonder he advocated preventive methods -- to
have you avoid this "secondary" effect of
a strong minus -- worn all the time.
I can voluntarily increase my myopia by tensing my eyes. However, a Bates teacher told me that it would be better if I could do it just by trying to grab too much at once mentally, and that it's not helpful if I deliberately manipulate my eyes.
Daniel Wrote:I can voluntarily increase my myopia by tensing my eyes. However, a Bates teacher told me that it would be better if I could do it just by trying to grab too much at once mentally, and that it's not helpful if I deliberately manipulate my eyes.
That makes sense. However you can increase myopia can be a good learning experience, even if you just find a way of tensing your eyes to do it, and especially it's good if you can do so without crossing your eyes or anything like that. But I would think it's even more useful when you find ways of thinking about what you see, or ways of using your eyes when seeing, that make your vision worse, because that's really what you will encounter from day to day. When your vision then gets worse unintentionally, you can match that up to your practice in making your vision worse, and figure out that you are indeed thinking or feeling or using your eyes in the same sort of way that you experimented with earlier to make your vision worse.
The wrong way to think about this would be to note that you can tense your eyes in one way to make your vision worse, and then try to force your muscles to work in another way, or a seemingly opposite way, to make your vision better. That's just another way of tensing your eyes, and ultimately will just lead to tensing them in the first way again or creating another visual or eye problem on top of what you already have. It's so much more efficient to identify what else is going on that's related to the feeling of tension - how are you using your eyes, what is your anxiety level, what is your train of thought, what are you feeling. Because at some level you yourself are generating the mental strain that translates into physical tension, and it isn't the fault of your eyes or your eye muscles at all, because they're just following your standing orders, and it just confuses things to try to issue new orders directly, ie: "Eyes, stop tensing."
David
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
David Wrote:When your vision then gets worse unintentionally, you can match that up to your practice in making your vision worse, and figure out that you are indeed thinking or feeling or using your eyes in the same sort of way that you experimented with earlier to make your vision worse.
My problem is that my vision is bad enough already that I don't usually notice when it gets worse unintentionally. If I did, I suspect vision recovery would be easy.
I believe it was Dr. Bates INTENTION to STOP entry
into SERIOUS myopia AT THE 20/70 LEVEL.
But to answer your question:
Otter> how come this happens only at 20/70?
Oh, Otter, it never stops. After you get that strong
minus lens (at 20/70), your vision goes down to
naked eye 20/200, in about eight months.
They, by golly, you go back (because you have
20/70 THROUGH a minus lens), and get a stronger
minus.
And then, again, and again.
They call that process "staircase myopia".
Bates clearly understood this situation -- and
tried to STOP IT before you eyes
adapted to that FIRST MINUS.
But that is why David is attempting to
help people here do the Bates method and AVOID
that first minus -- and the serious consequences that must follow.
I thought I'd bring this thread up since the subject has been touched on in another thread. If you are myopic and want to momentarily increase your myopia to demonstrate that it is affected by strain, I would suggest bringing a book, or something with text, close enough to you so that it is clear. Then, try to push it away with your eyes only. If that doesn't work, take a word and try to see it all equally well at once. If that doesn't make your vision noticeably worse, expand the amount of text you try to see equally at once.
I tried it and it actually makes me much more aware of what kind of strain I have in my eyes and entire body, which is very important in having mental control over the unconscious strain. I do have to admit it is very hard, and is very uncomfortable, but afterwards I relaxed and avoided what I was doing when I was straining and it was easier to obtain clear flashes! Maybe you guys should try this straining technique everyday right before the normal Bates techniques.
