It's hard to believe for a newbie that his or her imperfect sight is mostly a mental illusion, because it feels so real and the glasses that seem to correct it are also very real.
It is however accepted even by the optometrists that eyesight cannot be measured in diopters, as it should have been if imperfect sight was really strictly due to eyeball deformation. That's why the Snellen card X/Y numbers are used, meaning that two persons with the same Snellen reading may require different glasses. Consequently, there's something else that contributes to imperfect sight than eyeball deformation, and it is the illusions caused by mental strain.
It took me quite a long time to demonstrate myself this fact. I learned it from my flashes of improved vision. When a flash occurs, the image does not gradually reduce the blur to the point when it fully converges, as it would be for a focusing camera. During the flash, first a multitude of sharp double-images appear out of the blur, surrounded with a cloud of blur. Then the images line up horizontally. Next, most of the images fade out and only two stay, on quite a big distance from each other, one more vivid than the other. At this point, the fog of blur disappears and the two images appears amazingly clear and three-dimensional. Finally, the less vivid image gradually fades out and the perfect sight arrives. What a weird play of mental illusions! You will never obtain this with just optical systems. I believe my eyeballs come into the right shape quite early, when I begin to see the multiple sharp images, and the rest of time I am observing only mental illusions, when I could already have perfect sight.
The conclusion is: stop trying to do something with your eyes. Switch entirely to practicing with your mind. Don't underestimate memory and imagination techniques.
When I read the Snellen Card today at four feet, one of the 'O' on the 40 line appeared to me to be a blurred O sorrounded by six blurred O's thus giving the appearance of a flower. I have this problem so bad that I cant recognize most letters due to overlapping of these images.
I guess no camera can produce such an image. It must be an illusion only. When I closed one of my eyes, I could still see all the seven O's. I palmed for 2 minutes and looked again and found that there were only four O's now. When I checked a while ago I still see the seven O's. Unless I knew that it was an O beforehand I find it difficult to recognize the alphabets. I am convinced that only the person who understands the mental side of visual problems and works on them( by inducing relaxation) would be able to effect a permanent cure.
I want to complement this discussion by mentioning something I realized ....
I have extended seeing with mind to seeing with your FACE or your whole being. Because i have personally realized that straining causes the whole face to get strained, especially I have noticed my lips getting into shape when I relax. Imagine a stream of water spiraling towards the object of your attention.
I am afraid that you are wrong, and after some time of practicing you will realize that. I tell you from my own experience. The fundamental principles set forth by Dr. Bates are the quintessence of what you should do. Nothing else is as efficient as they. Dr. Bates has gone through decades and thousands pf patients before he refined the fundamental principles to be very concise and efficient.
Now I tell you what you are doing. When you are unable to imagine perfectly you don't know what else to do and begin inventing your own weird theories. Suddenly while thinking about them and subconsciously using your imagination, you become able to imagine something perfectly. For example, while you are thinking about the weird idea of "a stream of water spiraling towards the object of your attention" you may accidentally imagine the stream of water perfectly. At the very moment your eyesight improves, and you believe that the weird idea helped you. However when you repeat it, the trick will not work and you will be disappointed and not understand why, although you seem to think about the same "spiral". And the answer would be that because this time you didn't use imagination. After several times of trying you will realize that the shortest way to improve eyesight is to simply use imagination, and the best way to do it is exactly how Dr. Bates describes it. No other theories need to be invented.
In particular, I believe that imagining impossible things, things that are not true or things you have never seen is a strain. It is especially wrong to imagine that your seeing is associated with DOING something, like radiating energy from eyes, streaming water from eyes and other crap. Don't over-complicate things, Bates method is VERY SIMPLE!
Quote:Are you saying that we should see with our mind rather than our eyes?
Not exactly. We not *should* but we *do* see with our mind. But of course, we use our eyes to receive the visual signal, so to speak. However the signal itself is not vision, and the vision is how the mind interprets it, in other words what we see is how our mind imagines the world basing on the hints it receives from the eyes.
Your phrase is rather lame, because it can be understood that the mind "sees" directly without eyes, like through the "third eye" and other stuff that I really hate to get mixed in when discussing Bates method.
Your mind and eye both see, it is not one seeing to the exclusion of the other, they are a totality which cannot be seperated.
To be more correct your eyes send sensory data to the brain and the brain interprets this as "sight". According to Bates you see best(if you have perfect sight) only a small dot the size of a pin anywhere you look and you constantly shift many times in mere microseconds seeing many "pins" most distinct and everything else less distinct.
For those of us with imperfect sight, we feel that staring is how we see best. So we do not even try to see best only a small "pin", we stare and if we did not stare we would have had perfect sight. So our eyes are subconciously being used the wrong way and the brain also probably has trouble in assembling the sensory data(which is based on incorrect staring), but I am not sure since Bates was not a neuroscientist.
Quote:Are you saying that we should see with our mind rather than our eyes?
Not exactly. We not *should* but we *do* see with our mind. But of course, we use our eyes to receive the visual signal, so to speak. However the signal itself is not vision, and the vision is how the mind interprets it, in other words what we see is how our mind imagines the world basing on the hints it receives from the eyes.
Your phrase is rather lame, because it can be understood that the mind "sees" directly without eyes, like through the "third eye" and other stuff that I really hate to get mixed in when discussing Bates method.
Sure it sounds lame and corny. But then again, what doesn't on this board? I was just asking if we shouldn't focus a lot of attention on eyes when doing exercises and stuff (but I guess I was wrong?).
Oleg K. Wrote:It is especially wrong to imagine that your seeing is associated with DOING something,
I agree with this, and I would like to add that, I have noticed that we are not here in this physical body to do something at all. The physical mind can only perceive what is being done and focus on what to be done or in other words experience the doing, and not actually do the things. The physical mind "tries" to control the outside world, not realizing the ABSOLUTE FACT that no matter how much it tries it would not be able to "control" it, and it will result in different kinds of illness in the physical body and/or in the physical world. We must learn to be passive observers of the world and of course we can choose to observe the negative aspects of this world and feel bad, we can focus on what we please and feel wonderful while appreciating them! Thanks! Or Maybe here is where "All that is" or "God" can take control, when we decide to let go of controlling or doing.
I appreciate your input, we are saying the same things but, our language is a bit different!
aurum-femina Wrote:Sure it sounds lame and corny. But then again, what doesn't on this board?
LOL ;D Indeed, absolutely.
aurum-femina Wrote:I was just asking if we shouldn't focus a lot of attention on eyes when doing exercises and stuff (but I guess I was wrong?).
The sooner you forget about your eyes, the better. The problem is entirely in the mind. There is nothing you can do with your eyes to improve your vision. Focus is a wrong word though. You should just stop the wrong thought in your mind that causes you strain and then imagine the illusions of perfect sight to put your eyes back into the natural way. It feels like you stop doing something, not like focus on something.
