I'm a very picky person that only takes to a select few things here and there in whatever the subject is, so I've been strapped for material for the Method of the Month. Shifting isn't as interesting to me as other methods, but it's one of the most direct methods. Not necessarily the most successful, but the most direct anyway, because it's very clear what it seeks to accomplish.
Shifting is a general term that describes the normal shifting of the eyes when they're working the way they're supposed to. So this method is something that blends into others, like all the other methods, because they're all based on the same principles, and there's plenty of room for others to expand on what I'm saying or even offer a different method altogether.
So one way to practice shifting is this. Get an eye chart in front of you, at an appropriate distance. You should be able to read at least the top couple lines so you have something to work with. Pick a couple letters you can recognize and shift from one letter to the other. It should be two letters right next to each other. Say it's an A and an F. When you look at the A, notice how much clearer the A is than the F. You don't have to see the A perfectly, just notice that it fills more of your mind and occupies your attention more than the F. Forget about the F. Then, after a second or two, shift to the F. Notice that the A isn't as clear in your mind as the F is that you're currently looking at, and that you have to look directly back to the A to see it as well as you're able to. Continue this for at least a few minutes.
It might help to palm for a while beforehand to better prepare yourself. After a few minutes you should find the letters on the chart starting to clear up. Let your eyes go. If they start to feel funny, let them feel funny, and let them point where they want, and see if you can continue the shifting. Each and every time you shift to each letter, consciously confirm whether the other letter is seen worse. That is VERY important, and the whole point of this. Talk to yourself out loud if it helps:
"Now I'm looking at F. Is A not as clear? A still looks as clear as it did. Now I'm looking at A. Ok, F is definitely less clear and A has my attention. "
And so on.
You can vary it by going along a whole line of letters, noticing that each is clearest only when you look directly at it. Letters should become clearer, and you can move further down the chart. Don't be afraid to check out the letters on the bottom line. They aren't unattainable, they're just small. If your problem is distance vision, remember that your problem is not with seeing small letters, it's with seeing ANYTHING in the distance, so if larger letters clear up, smaller ones may also, by a lot.
I personally don't like looking from one part of a letter to another the whole time, which is another way of doing it. I find that i do that automatically and look more at the whiteness around the letters than the black (you can't see black; you imagine it; it's an absence of something to see), but doing so exclusively is more boring to me than looking from one letter to another.
Beyond the chart clearing though, you should notice other things happening. I won't give them away.
Comments? Questions?
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Sounds like something if one can get on track with...or can master it patiently and start moving farther with shifting, serious improvement can be made...
Imma try this tonight but my vision is so unstable and none of the bates methods actually worked for me so far....im not sure but i think palming only helps me although the clear flashes dont come right after i palm, but whenever they want -_-
Does using a computer chart have any difference from a real poster chart on the wall?ÃâàIm thinking of buying a or some snellen charts is it a good idea to have a few of them around the house or is one enough...
Also its a good idea to start shifting at the near point where we can see clearly right?
One last thing is about myself...my bad eye (left) is quite a bit worse (as in ability to relax) than my good eye also being .50 worse in prescription. It also recieves less than half as many flashes as my right eye do (when i get a clear flash at some certain time and close my right eye i realized only my right eye got the clear flash)
So in my condition....when i practice swings or shifts should i do it individually for each eye?
I recommend doing most things with both eyes. It can be a tricky process and they might need each other. But when reading you chart you can cover either eye and read it, then with both eyes together.
Either start shifting at the near point or something you can see easily enough at the far point, again constantly keeping in mind that you're seeing worse the side of the letter you aren't directly looking at. Definitely don't start off with something you can barely see. You want to ease into it.
One chart is fine.
I'd go with something on the wall, not on the screen, but it might not be a bad idea to practice with one on the computer too, to get you into the habit of shifting better while using it.
So how did it go last night?
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Just the usual...nothing special happened lol...i think either exercises dont help me or i dont do them right =/ But at the same time im noticing slow improvements automaticly
Well if you want to describe what you tried in long-winded excruciating detail (time spent, every little thing you did, anything you felt, good or bad), I love that kind of thing and would be happy to offer suggestions.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
well...i did it for about 6 minutes non stop...my eyes didn't feel they were straining nor relaxed...just the usual blur. I didn't feel dizzy or anything and the bottom rows didn't clear up nor blur up. But im finding myself getting a little into the hang of long swings now which I think should be good.
Also, for a person like me that doesn't notice improvements from exercises but noticing gradual slight improvements of baseline acuity effortlessly...would it happen that this would continue until i have perfect sight like years after? Like maybe I will learn to use my eyes unconciously?
Well you gave that a try, so you know it, or at least the particular way you did it, isn't a benefit for you. I say it that way because as with all Bates techniques, even by apparently following instructions there are many different ways to fail at something, whereas when you succeed at something you realize how true the instructions really are, and that you followed them more deeply when you succeeded.
With shifting, some possible mistakes could be:
Trying to create the illusion of the letters swinging instead of being in the frame of mind of allowing it. It's something that happens but can't very well be forced.
Locking your eyes to keep them in a narrow range of movement, from the top of the letter to the bottom. Allow yourself to look away occasionally, and even stop for several seconds before continuing.
Trying to make the part of the letter you shift to clear up. Instead, notice how the part you shift away from is less clear when you don't look directly at it. This is just as much true for letters 1/4 inch tall at 20 feet away as it is for larger letters.
Feeling frustrated. Negative emotions will easily prevent you from succeeding
Performing the shifts too mechanically. It's important to be consciously aware of what you're doing in this exercise in particular, even saying out loud "Bottom is less clear" as you shift to the top of the letter, and vice versa.
Not using your memory. As you look at either end of a letter, think about what it should look like. Your mind will assist your eyes, and you don't want to be trying to make your eyes do what is the mind's job. If you can shift to either end of of a letter and successfully think for an instant what it should look like, even vaguely, you should notice an improvement before long.[/list:u]
These are just mistakes drawn from my personal experience that I found myself making.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
When I try this I find the letter I am looking at is grey and not complete but the letter to the right of it which I am only regarding is black and clear . I then look at this clear letter and it then becomes grey and the next letter to the right becomes black and clear . Because of this effect I have avoided Shifting but I now think that as it is clearly showing me a problem which should confront . But How ?
Right, that's "eccentric fixation," seeing better what you aren't looking at. It's one of those things that nothing else explains except the Bates method. Practically everyone with a refractive error (myopia, hyperopia, etc.) has it to some degree or another, because it has to do with how you use your eyes, and it goes away only as you improve your vision, temporarily or permanently.
You can reverse it by mindful repetition of shifting. Each time you look at a letter, affirm to yourself that it's blacker than the one you aren't looking at, and switching to the other letter about every 2 seconds. A shortened version of affirming it each time might be "this one's blacker." Or say "the other one is less black," which can be better because it's easier to ignore what you aren't looking at and make it less conscious and less clear than to try to make what you're looking at clearer, which might just encourage you to strain on it.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
What I find hard to understand about shiiftng is this... When I a looking at a letter, I am doing that, lookingat the letter and not looking at the other letter I shifted from. So am I supposed to be looking at the letter A and still trying to look at the letter B without moving my eyes, because if I do that my focus goes competely to pot and find I am not looking at the first letter at all!
What I am saying is when I look at the first letter, thats all I am looking at, when I shift to the second letter, that then becomes what I am looking at. I cannot see the second letter to see if it is worse or not, because I am no longer looking at it.
Well what you're noticing is it's hard to look at two things at once. Your vision just goes to hell when you do it. The thing about noticing that the other object is seen worse when you don't look at it has to do with training yourself to look at something in order to see it, instead of freezing your eyes and trying to see everything at once without looking at any details specifically
An extreme example of staring that just came to mind is this - Say you're hunting, and you're waiting for a deer to come out of the bushes from either to your left or your right. You could sit there and stare in the middle, between the two spots, so that each bush is in your peripheral vision. This is the type of thing that people with vision problems do. They freeze their eyes, try to see everything without letting their eyes drift around to details.
So the exercise with the letters has to do with training yourself to notice that you really do see things worse unless you look directly at them. At first you'll hardly notice this, and you'll have to look back and forth between two objects that are very far apart to convince yourself that you see best only where you're looking. The point is that people with blurry vision do NOT see best where they are looking. They see best at some other point outside of their apparent center of vision. You might realize, for example, that if you looka little to the left of a letter on the chart, the letter actually appears to be sharper than when you look directly at it. This is "eccentric fixation", which Bates wrote about.
But as you practice shifting and begin to convince yourself that you don't see best where you aren't looking, it will start to become true, and you can move to objects a smaller and smaller distance apart, until you are able to shift to two parts of the same letter and notice that the part you're directly regarding actually appears to be clearest.
The good news is it can take just a matter of several minutes of practicing this shifting, directing your attention between two points a tiny distance apart, to get a temporary improvement in your vision.
David
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
My only comments on this are that when I am looking from point to another - say from the top of the letter T to the bottom of the same letter, I have to force myself to see the top of the T in the peripheral as i am now aware that I am looking just at the bottom. By doing so I feel that I am actually forcing my eye to see the two points at once - the top ad bottom.
Curiously if I concentrate on relaxing the eyes (at least I think that is what I am doing) and really look at the letters, i can sometimes find there is a impression of sharpness of theletter but surrounded by double blurred images. In other words I can occasionally see a part of the letter fair clear, but there are additional blurred images of the same letter ghosting all about it, that makes actually seeing the clear part very difficult.
If I reduce the appature if the iris - by looking through a pin hole for example, I can see so much more clearly and wonder if my iris is actually working correctly?
But you DON'T have to force your eye to see two points at once. That isn't what you're doing with this exercise. Hold a grape in your hand, and feel its texture and weight and anything else you notice with your sense of touch. Then drop it and hold an apple in your hand, feeling the texture and weight of the apple. It's the same thing. While you're holding the apple, you don't try to think of how the grape was at the same time you're actively feeling the apple, right? You would just get confused and wouldn't sense anything clearly.
So when you look at the second point, you just note that the previous point is seen worse, the same way you would note that the sensation of the grape is far reduced in your mind while you are holding the apple. You don't actually try to see the first point at the same time in order to decide whether you see it worse.
Anyway, you just keep repeating this among the points, moving to the other point after every couple seconds, and eventually you notice that things start to actually appear different.
The multiple images are normal. It can mean astigmatism, but when you've got several images, it's just too many for astigmatism to account for and is somehow an effect of the mind, such as the visual system trying to sort things out while still under a certain amount of strain.
And the pinhole effect is normal. It's an optical thing, cuts out peripheral rays that would create blur in a myopic eye.
David
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
vobes Wrote:Curiously if I concentrate on relaxing the eyes (at least I think that is what I am doing) and really look at the letters, i can sometimes find there is a impression of sharpness of theletter but surrounded by double blurred images. In other words I can occasionally see a part of the letter fair clear, but there are additional blurred images of the same letter ghosting all about it, that makes actually seeing the clear part very difficult.
Yes, this is very common. Usually it is a result of a partial clear flash, in which only one eye gets clear but the other remains blurry. This is why you see the letters clear, but they may be surrounded by blur, or parts may appear blurry. In the latter case, as both eyes see differently- one blurry and one clear, each tries to "fight" for your consciousness resulting in partial clarity that you observed. You can confirm this by covering one eye with your palm and determine which one has the clear flash.
Another possibility, as suggested by Dave, is astigmatism. Our eyes are very dynamic and can traverse different states, such as myopic, hypermetropic, astigmatic, normal, or any other conditions. Usually each state lasts only a fraction of a second, sometimes it lasts until the next blink.
If you asked me though, I'd say you are having clear flashes in one eye, which is great because it indicates some success. However it's also not great because it could mean one eye is improving faster than the other. When I started the Bates method both my eyes were 20/70. I kept getting clear flashes in one eye, which led to unsymmetrical improvement. One eye became (20/30) while the other 20/50). At least there was improvement!
Quote:If I reduce the appature if the iris - by looking through a pin hole for example, I can see so much more clearly and wonder if my iris is actually working correctly?
If your pupil is round, it's working correctly. The pin hole effect is just plain physics (as Dave described).
You may have noticed that your eyesight is clearer on a sunny day than on a dark cloudy day. This is due to the pinhole effect because on a sunny day your pupil contracts to reduce the amount of light entering the eye to prevent damage to the photo-sensitive cells on the retina. The reduced diameter of your pupil creates a "pinhole", which sharpens your vision.
Thanks for the comments regarding the double images and pin hole effect.
I am in a curious postion at the moment. I have been suffering with Acanthamoeba Keratitis, a potential blinding condition formed of a parrasite living in the eye and causing scaring on the front of the eye, amongst other things, in my left eye.
I have had this for six months, which has had the disabiliting effect of perventing me from working, causing servere pain and intense light sensitivenes - to the point I was unable to go outside. I contracted this from wearing contact lenses. Very nasty.
The upshot is that my left eye has been extremely misty for this time period and now slowly getting better. I think I will be cured in another mont or so. As a result I had to ditch my contact lenses and was prescribed glasses. I think they are about -6 each eye.
I read Aldious Huxley's book when I was in my 20's some 20 years ago and that lead me to Bates and I tried to cure my eye sight problems back then, but being young and impatient, i gave up.
Now, I have really learnt the value of eyesight - and you don't really appreciate it until you nearly go blind, I am determind to ditch the glasses for good and correct my bad habits. Ofcourse there are critics everywhere who try to disuade you of anything they don't understand, but i am older enough now to ignore them.
Thanks for this forum and support you guys are giving to everyone -I am thrilled to see that this subject is being taken seriously, even if my a small number of dedicated followers. Keep up the good work.
Vobes
I mention my eye troubles and treatments in my daily podcast at <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.vobes.com">http://www.vobes.com</a><!-- w --> and <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nakedenglishman.co.uk">http://www.nakedenglishman.co.uk</a><!-- w --> where there is a link back to this site.
