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Several beginner questions

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Several beginner questions
#1
Hello,

I am new to this forum and have recently (end of August) started taking off my glasses because I very much would like to improve my eyesight via the Bates method. I have myopia -2.50 (right) and -2.75 (left) and have been wearing glasses for over 10 years. I am in my 30s now.

I was hoping someone could help me with the following questions I have:

1) I find it hard to consolidate the ideas of central fixation and shifting. When you are shifting, you are supposed to still see (although less clear) the areas where you are not looking at. So you need to compare where you are looking at with areas you are not looking at. That makes me want to see a large area at once instead of using central fixation. Do I misunderstand Bates?

2) I am taking the train into work, I spend over an hour a day on the train. When I look through the windows, the landscape is rapidly passing by in the opposite direction. In theory, it’s similar to the swinging motion Bates described. Can I use the moving landscape to help relax my eyes? I know that with Bates it is the viewer who is supposed to move, not the things that are seen, but I have read about people using swivelling chairs to practise the swing, so maybe I can benefit from the train movement to help relax my eyes. Should I just let the landscape move or should I try to see things?

3) I have installed the Swing Windows computer program. I am unsure how to use it: should I just try to read the moving text? I read somewhere on this forum that you should just try to let the letters move instead of wanting to read them. Wouldn’t that provoke a stare?

4) When I come home after a glassless day at the office (computer work), I feel some pressure just above and behind my eyes. Could this mean that I am becoming aware of the constant strain in my eyes? If so, why do I only feel it at the end of the day? Or do I just feel extra strain from NOT using my glasses…?

5) The day after I stopped using my glasses for 90% of the time (I unfortunately need them for driving), I developed a severe eye infection in my right eye. The eye doctor doesn’t know what the cause was. She thinks it might have been an allergic reaction but I haven’t used any new shampoo, soap, … so she doubted her own theory. We are two weeks later now and  I feel some pain in the right eye when I put my glasses on. It might be because I blink less when I have my glasses on. I am just wondering if there could be a relation between disregarding glasses and developing an eye infection. By the way, I didn’t tell the eye doctor about not using my glasses anymore because I don’t want to start a discussion with her about Bates.

Any ideas are very welcome! Sorry for the long initial post this has become.

Kind regards and perfect vision to you all
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#2
interesting, my left eye (i have myopia a lil worse than yours and i'm 17) which is the worser eye with a little astigmatism is hurting after not using glasses for a couple hours at a time (stronger when using computers during these couple hours), mostly the lower eyelid.  After a couple days and i looked at the mirror theres kind of an infection as well...  ???

Maybe your eyes are just complaining cause it doesn't feel good  :-\
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#3
Hi rust,

If you're not looking at something anymore, don't think about it. On one hand, telling someone to see the current point best often leads them to strain to try to make the current point clearer. Telling them to instead see the previous point worse, in an attempt to steer them away from straining on the current point by trying to make it better, just leads to trying to see something you aren't looking at. So I like to explain it in terms of your other senses. Pick up a grape, feel its weight and texture. Drop it and pick up a peach, feel its weight and texture, noticing that the grape is now not felt as clearly because you aren't holding it. You don't try to feel everything at once. Same thing as sound - you know how to pick out particular frequencies and listen if you want to hear anything clearly.

When things pass by you continuously at too fast a pace for you to focus on them, your eyes may continue to make small unnoticeable shifts while you have given up trying to focus. And that's one of the main goals - to stop trying to focus, because you are not in control of your focusing mechanism; your body is.

The pressure is probably strain, whether you're noticing it for the first time or it's a result of more strain from not wearing glasses.

David
Site Administrator

"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
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#4
xudzh: My eye infection was also mainly situated around the lower eyelid. I hope yours is also better by now.

David, thank you for explaining the seeing-worse idea in other terms. It's very helpful.
About practising relaxation in the train: so you advise me to just look at the landscape that is flashing by? I did this morning and I noticed that my eyes make small movements which I think come from still trying to focus on what I see outside. I am a bit afraid, though, that not focusing will make me gaze and stare...

If anyone can explain to me how to use the Swing Windows program properly, please do. Any other comments and ideas are of course also very welcome.

Kind regards and perfect vision to you all
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#5
Dear Rust,

Some different (but supportive) ideas for you to consider.

Since you are willing to "work" with no -2.5 diopter lens on
your face -- that is wonderful.

It was obviously Bates idea to use that minus as
little as possible.

Some further suggestions:

1.  Get a Snellen, and read it.  Establish what
the letters you can read.  (1/2 correctly).
I know that most people do not "like" reading
their Snellen, but if you wish to confirm your
progress it is necessary to confrim improvement.
(There is a monitor chart here for your use.)

2.  Check your Snellen in excellent light.  Some
prescriptions are "excessive".  If you can
see 20/60 you will have made a lot of progress,
and can do many things with no minus lens.

3.  Your Snellen is probably about 20/100 at this
time (judging from that -2.5 diopter perscription.

These are not Bates methods -- but are intended
to help you verify your vision-clearing work.

Best,

Otis
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#6
rust Wrote:1) I find it hard to consolidate the ideas of central fixation and shifting. 
I think the point of shifting is not really to see things that aren't in the center, but to notice that things seem to move relative to the position of your eye. I'm not sure if it's correct, but when I'm doing shifting exercises, I don't try to compare things in the center with things not in the center; just see them moving. like how when you watch a car moving forwards, it feels like you're moving backwards.
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#7
Otis, can you please let me know why is it so very important to test your vision?

Bates also suggests this on pg.242 and 244 in his chapter on home treatment:

Place a Snellen test card on the wall at a distance of ten, fourteen, or twenty
feet, and devote half a minute a day, or longer, to reading the smallest letters you
can see, with each eye separately, covering the other with the palm of the hand
in such a way as to avoid touching the eyeball. Keep a record of the progress
made, with the dates.


Children and adults who have worn glasses will have to devote an hour or
longer every day to practice with the test card and the balance of their time to
practice on other objects.


I hope that in his 2nd quote, Bates actually means practising shifting and central fixation with the test card, instead of just checking your vision... Any other things to try with the test card?

Apart from shifting (and seeing movement), central fixation, memory/visualisation, sunning and palming, are there other ways to achieve relaxation?

Thank you all for your valued feedback.

Kind regards and perfect vision to you all
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#8
I think you mistyped quote 2 (or my version of the Bates book is wrong.  I'm using this link http://www.central-fixation.com/perfect/chapter24.htm):

Bates Wrote:Children or adults who have worn glasses, however, are more difficult to relieve, and will usually have to practice the methods of gaining relaxation described in other chapters; they will also have to devote considerable time to the treatment.

So no it's not only the test card you should practice with.
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#9
Hello Gunnar,

I didn't type the text, I copied and pasted it from this website:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.iblindness.org/books/bates/ch24.html">http://www.iblindness.org/books/bates/ch24.html</a><!-- m -->
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#10
Dear Rust,

Subject: Why is it important that you confirm your
Snellen?

Quote:Otis, can you please let me know why is it so very important to test your vision?

For the following reasons:

1.  If you (or your children) wish to keep your (and their) vision
clear -- then it is important that you know the legal
standard for REQUIRED visual acuity.

2.  If, for instance, you have your child reading his
Snellen, at 20/20 a year ago, and now his Snellen
is 20/60 -- you can now begin the use of Bates methods,
and AVOID the majority-opinion optometrist.

3.  If Bates works in this context, then you can confirm
that your child's Snellen clears back to 20/20 -- by
your own VERIFICATION.

4.  You are far more likely to believe this result -- if
you have SEEN THIS RESULT ON YOUR SNELLEN.

5.  This is a matter of self-empowerment. 

6.  Further, you could obtain some weak minus lens
from Zennioptical.com and confirm your refractive STATE
yourself, and confirm that in clearing his Snellen,
he also got back to a normal refractive STATE (i.e.,
zero diopters.)

All of the above DEPENDS on your confidence that
you can clear your Snellen.  None of the above
requires ANY medical person to be involved at all.

But all of it does depend on your reading your Snellen
at 20 feet -- and PERSONALLY CONFIRM THE RESULTS.

Reading your Snellen is a matter of personal confidence
in what you are doing.

Just one man's opinion.

Otis
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#11
rust Wrote:I hope that in his 2nd quote, Bates actually means practising shifting and central fixation with the test card, instead of just checking your vision... Any other things to try with the test card?

Bates provided evidence that for school children who were developing myopia, merely reading their snellen for 5 minutes a day would gradually cure their eye conditions. (I think it was only done with myopia)
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#12
Hi all,

About the confusion regarding the quotes referenced, it's not that there's two different version of a passage there or anything, but Bates actually wrote both of those suggestions together in his book.

Look back at the online version, there's two different and separate paragraphs beginning with the word 'children'.

So there was no mistypes, or anything, both the quotes are together in that chapter.

Big Grin
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#13
Thank you all for your input.

Two days ago, I was looking at some blurry smallprint about 3 feet away and consciously tried to make my left eye jump from one letter to the other, back and forth like that, trying to achieve a very high jumping speed. (I previously had achieved a short clearing when using both eyes but since my right eye is slightly better than my left, I had assumed that I had all of a sudden only used my right eye only, which would explain the clearing.) So, I was jumping my left eye back and forth, concentrating on the speed of my eye, when all of a sudden, the veil around the letters was slowly lifted and I could see the entire sheet very clearly. I noticed that my left eye was slightly stinging and that I didn't blink. When I did blink, the veil was unfortunately back. I managed to achieve another clearing shortly after that, but never since then. I am quite sure that the clearing was not obtained via extra tears in my eyes.
I have to say it was a bit of a shock to me to actually experience this. I am still not sure though that this is what you all call "a clear flash" because the clearing came about gradually, contrary to what the word "flash" indicates. Also, the jumping back and forth between letters very quickly is not part of the Bates method, is it? Or was I practising shifting without realizing it?

Is it a bad thing to cover one eye while practising the Bates methods? I know you should normally do them with both eyes together but I can focus better mentally if I use one eye only.

Any further thoughts? Many thanks in advance.

Kind regards and perfect vision to you all
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#14
Rust,

Quote:both eyes together but I can focus better mentally if I use one eye only.

In fact it is for this very reason that you *should* practice with both eyes, and *not* one eye.
With one eye it is true that to control your eyesight and to make it better is easier for various people and it's the same with me. I find that covering one eye and then, for example: looking at the sun, it is far easier to do without squinting than if I use both eyes.

However it is far more valuable to practice with both eyes I think, because the mental control necessary to improve your sight using both eyes would be much greater and a much greater benefit to speed up your cure, if you can do it, than if you do it with just one eye where the condition is made artificially easier for you. I.e.:
To look at the sun using both eyes is a greater test to your vision and a greater benefit when done without strain than if you do it with one eye where the strain is less apparent, more hidden from you.

You should aim to make the strain apparent; not to hide it away, not to fear it but to confront it and destroy it.

AFAIK Dr.Bates didn't recommended practicing with one eye, lest it were to demonstrate something related.

In the reality of normal life we use both eyes and this is the natural state. A person who wishes to be truly cured should practice the natural state and not an unnatural one where the training is made 'lighter' for them. It only weakens your state of mental control and strength, in the long run.

It is like squinting where one partially closes their eyes in order artificially to see clearer; in short term perhaps it will benefit you however in the long run it always adds to the strain and increases your weakness; inability to be cured quick and easy.

Do not seek the paths of avoidance where you are desiring to hide from weaknesses. Learn to turn your weaknesses into strengths and from being prone to strain to immunity to strain; from conditions which strain you and are at first uncomfortable into conditions which favor you and are comfortable; and you will soon find the imperfect sight in all conditions will evaporate and that you are cured with ease.

Your weakness is the veil which shrouds your sight when you look at smallprint at 3 feet; therefore to cure yourself you should not use artificial means such as practicing with only one eye but you should confront the veil by quelling the original strain; that is by destroying the strain of the mind and learning never to stare, in all places. The stare is what makes you vulnerable; it is the reason the 'veil' attacks your sight, the strain enjoys the stare - feeds on it like a parasite. You have to take away the 'food' of strain, you have to kill it off, make it never come back, remove away all it's suitable living conditions. And if you are able to do that it will die away, be gone for ever, have nothing to live on or to be friends with.

Putting it another way, you might state that, 'the stare is the best friend of the strain'.  So imagine it like a school classroom: If you separate two pals in a class and take away their enjoyment; then they stop being such troublemaker because they have no one to play with and no one to encourage them to continue their mischief. Neither can exist without the other.

When one is present, the other is also present, and when one leaves the 'classroom' (the mind) the other leaves and the class is now free to learn from the teacher (your stimulus, perception) without hassle, interference, and distraction.

Now lastly I have one lingering thought as I write this post. I know this has been a long post and perhaps you were bored by it or don't have a clue what I am talking about but I just want you to remember something important, just one thing ABOVE ALL OTHERS, to keep and hold this statement in your mind while you are practicing and all through the day:

The way to cure your imperfect sight is simple, child's play.You will at times be tempted to think that the route to cure yourself is somehow complicated and perhaps a concept which is a higher level and too difficult for you to comprehend. You will be mislead by some of the others giving you strange and complex advices on various other forums. But this is never true, the opposite is the case, the cure is easy peasy and you must always remember that and never, whatever you do, forget it. I hope and think that if you are able to always keep this knowledge firmly in your mind that you shall attain perfect vision with very much ease.
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#15
Thank you, Kazekage, for your wise words. I was not bored at all by your long post, moreso intrigued by your wisdom. It's hard for me to believe you are only 15 as it is mentioned in your profile. I am interested in your path towards perfect vision, so if you wish, do tell us about it. Or if you have already talked about it elsewhere on this forum, please post a link. Thank you.
I might come back to ask for some further explanations about what you wrote but I don't have much time to be on the computer right now.

I just wanted to point out that I didn't intend to practise Bates with one eye at the time. I experimented with it because I wanted to rule out that a clearing could be explained by switching off the weaker eye. I know that we normally use both eyes together so it makes perfect sense to "do Bates" with both eyes together.

Kind regards and perfect vision to you all
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