I just read Bates book and am trying to do the "remembering a period" he talks about. Is it really just closing my eyes and imagining a black period or black dot? Then opening my eyes and imagining I see the black dot on the wall or the snellen letters or something?
He says some people walk around imagining black periods everywhere. Do they imagine the period on something? If I am looking at a door do I imagine periods all over the door?
It is just hard to believe that that could help vision but I guess it trains your eyes to fixate on a point or a part of something and not stare at the whole. I am afraid all this extra thinking to practice these things is going to make my vision bad!
Kristen,
I am still "working" on seeing the black period, but this is how I have had my best success:
I look at a black period on a white page right before sitting or lying down to palm. Immediately,
I take my mind off trying to strain to see something by focusing on my natural breath, just watching it,
not trying to affect or change it. This will relax me within minutes and help me slow down enough
to focus on the pleasuable sensation of images coming into my mind while not straining to see them.
In a very light handed way I think to my self that I just looked at a period a moment ago and
I sort of welcome that period to come back at any time it wants to. All the while I let myself enjoy the
pleasurable feeling accompanying having a more relaxed mind. The period often comes in some form,
in feeling, in shape, in blackness or all three.
Until you have good memory of periods while palming or with only eyes closed, it may be very difficult
to see them with your eyes open.
kristen Wrote:He says some people walk around imagining black periods everywhere. Do they
imagine the period on something? If I am looking at a door do I imagine periods all over the door?
Best to start at the start and not take one of Bates' patient anecdotes
as directions to follow. Everyone is different and will have different beneficial things that they will
come upon naturally.
Maybe check out David's past Method of the Month postings about remembering or palming.
Well first of all I want to say that since you have perfect sight already (I think I remember you saying on another thread that you have 20/15 vision), there's actually no urgent need to practice with the period. However you could still do it with benefit to yourself, since no one is able to maintain perfect sight constantly, all the time. Remembering the period perfectly throughout the day will certainly secure you a more constant and non-fluctuating degree of vision, and allow you to relax in straining times. This relaxation will not only be infused into you, but will also flow onto your daughter since they imitate parents. She will sense your own equable and blissful poise and mimic it unconsciously.
If you are just practicing and testing out the methods Bates advocates to improve your own understanding of them and thus allowing you to help your daughter better like Oleg advised, then that's really good too, so I commend you for your dedication.
Quote:Is it really just closing my eyes and imagining a black period or black dot?
OK I get the feeling from your incredulous tone you think it is surely somewhat preposterous that such a simple thing as remembering a period could help anyone to improve their eyesight, am I correct? This is a crucial mistake, I warn you! The genius in the cure of imperfect sight is that it's SO SIMPLE. That's the whole point that Bates tries to emphasize all the time in his magazine - the cure is not complicated, and the belief that it is adds an unnecessary mental strain. You've got to make sure your daughter knows this too, because it is the fundamental tenet of the whole cure.
Like David said - if a five year old can't understand the instructions then you're probably doing it wrong.
But it's only natural to expect that to accomplish anything requires a complex series of actions first, and without a great degree of effort and hard work it cannot be accomplished. This paradigm has been ingrained into society, and it is difficult to escape from it. We feel somehow comfortable by thinking in such a way because it feels the norm. So I'm not saying you're stupid or anything.
Anyhow sorry to blabber on about it, but it's so important that you get this thing straight in your head right from the start. When you corrupt your understanding of how a cure can be brought about, it is very difficult to rid yourself of the wrong thoughts and return to the real truth, and it becomes the greatest hindrance, the most daunting barrier to severe ties from.
Quote:It is just hard to believe that that could help vision but I guess it trains your eyes to fixate on a point or a part of something and not stare
YES!Certainly it does have that effect. Actually the object of all of the methods of cure is precisely that. Swinging, palming , shifting, blinking, dodging, they are all just ways to avoid the stare.
But at the same time and In a more direct sense, though, remembering a perfect black has an immediate effect. Bates said that when the memory or imagination is perfect, the sight is also perfect. So at the precise moment someone has imperfect sight, their memory and imagination also simultaneously become imperfect. Only a mind at rest can remember anything perfectly. Mental strain is the cause of imperfect sight, therefore remembering something, any colour perfectly relieves the mental strain. Now what that therefore means is, when you are imagining the period with the eyes open you should have perfect sight if you did it perfectly. The memory is a method of huge importance because it means that, if done properly, one can secure an improvement in their sight VERY QUICKLY.
Personally, I don't know why this is so. It's just one of the magical and miraculous effects of a mind at rest.
The purpose then, of remembering a period is just to give you perfect sight. There's no other complex answer, although you might have expected it. It JUST WORKS.
Quote:If I am looking at a door do I imagine periods all over the door?
No, I don't think that's how Bates intended its use. Trying to imagine periods on everything you are looking at is just a strain. When you can imagine a period perfectly with the eyes open, it shouldn't really 'be' anywhere except right in your own head. Don't try to visualize it on your actual field of vision. That would take an effort and all effort ruins the sight. You're taking things to complicatedly. I'll give you some advice from personal experience - To understand Bates, you have to take the most simple, literal meaning of what he could possibly be saying. Don't take the ambiguous route. Don't give his instructions some kind of mysterious, abstract, new age nonsense thing. Because it's not there.
BTW A common confusion over the black period is: Why a black period? What's so special about it? Well basically, Dr. Bates went around a lot of places and had a whole lot of experience with this kind of thing and what he found was that the period was actually the most easiest thing to remember for a lot of people. He DIDN'T isolate it from other objects just to make it difficult or anything - it's the contrary. It's actually because it was the easiest thing for a lot of people to get a mental picture of that he found it might be the most beneficial. The misconception is to think that the period is the one object that takes the most effort to visualize and that's why it's such a great test of imagination and memory. But the opposite is the truth - it's the object that takes the least effort and that's why it's the greatest test. It's difficult for people to let go of all their effort and just 'let' the period come into the mind, naturally, because the belief that to remember or imagine anything takes an effort has set in so deep.
Anyway this has been a longer post than I expected, but I hope I helped out!
Quote:Is it really just closing my eyes and imagining a black period or black dot? Then opening my eyes and imagining I see the black dot on the wall or the snellen letters or something?
The way I see it it's about remembering a black dot in some favorable circumstances like palming and then
to continue remembering it in situations where you strain like looking at letters. In other words you remember the black period
as long as possible while palming and looking at the test card.
Quote:He says some people walk around imagining black periods everywhere. Do they imagine the period on something? If I am looking at a door do I imagine periods all over the door?
Bates says
Quote:Some patients retard their recovery by decorating the scenery with periods as
they go about during the day, instead of simply remembering a period in their minds. This does them no good,
but is, on the contrary, a cause of strain.
in the chapter "Memory as an aid to vision". You might have missed the second part of the quote as it is
broken across two pages in the pdf. I noticed there's lots of small details in his book, that can be misinterpreted if
read too quickly. Best to take the time to read it slowly.
