<![CDATA[Eyesight Improvement Forum - David's Old Blog Posts]]>

MyBB Internal: One or more warnings occurred. Please contact your administrator for assistance.

<![CDATA[Eyesight Improvement Forum - David's Old Blog Posts]]> https://www.iblindness.org/forum/ 2024-05-03T08:18:16Z MyBB 2013-07-25T02:58:22Z 2013-07-25T02:58:22Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2407 <![CDATA[Feeding Your Imagination (7-25-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013/feeding-your-imagination/

&ta href="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/looking-at-flower.jpg"&t&timg class="size-full wp-image-398 alignright" title="looking-at-flower" src="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/looking-at-flower.jpg" alt="visualizing a flower" width="335" height="366" /&t&t/a&t

I was lying down on a bench, looking up at some tree branches, and I slipped into an altered state of mind, near sleep. I saw the leaves and branches pretty clearly, but at the same time I had no understanding of what I was looking at. There was no depth. It was all just pieces and colors mixed together. Meanwhile I was thinking of something unrelated. So my imagination was totally disengaged from what I was looking at.

Why does this matter? What does it mean?

Dr. Bates found that his patients' ability to visualize things they have seen corresponded to their quality of vision. People who have very good vision can visualize vividly, while people with very poor vision either have very poor visualization skills or they don't make full use of their skills.

What you see with your eyes, in the moment, is very important. But it is only data, and limited data at that. You may think you see a flower because of your eyes, but your eyes only took in the light rays bouncing off the flower. Your mind does the rest of the job for you to perceive the object that your eyes are looking at.

In the picture to the right, the man is visualizing what the flower should look like, even though his eyes are giving him blurry data. But what is he really doing?

Remember that when your eyes don't focus light rays correctly, the image on your eyes' retinas is scattered, which is what we call blurry.

If you already know that imagination is important to vision, you may still be making a critical mistake. You may be trying to use your imagination to fix the data that your eyes receive, bringing it into focus by perhaps trying to overlay a clear image on top of the blurry one, or imagining that the clearer image inside your head is "out there". But consider that the image you perceive happens inside in your mind and not out there. Everything you think you see as you look around is an interpretation inside your mind of what is out there.

So it makes much more sense to do things the other way around. Use what your eyes see to assist your imagination. This way, seeing becomes all about visualizing. The data from your eyes is secondary, while your focus is primarily on the image that you are visualizing.

Visualization happens in a different place mentally than the place where the data from your eyes is first received. People have described it as in the back of their heads. For instance, briefly remember the home you grew up in. Do it now...

You had at least a vague flash of the home, right? If it wasn't vivid, then at least you had some minimum sense of form, place, color. And as you did so, you didn't suddenly see it out in front of you, where this computer screen is. It happened elsewhere in your mind. If the image was very vague and you are unable to make it much better, that just shows that you need to practice it more. If at other times, like while sleeping, you spontaneously visualize things very vividly, even if briefly, that shows what your immediate potential is. If you visualize clearly at any time, you are capable of doing it virtually all the time. If you have a hard time doing it while you are awake and your eyes are open, that just shows that it's against your programmed way of seeing. But that can be changed, just by practice.

So like the man looking at the flower, you should be visualizing what you are looking at. If you don't know what it's supposed to look like, imagine what it could be. Or even just imagine something that you know it isn't. The point is to prioritize your imagination and use the visual data from your eyes to feed it. Maybe you don't even care about the flower. Maybe something else deserves your attention more. Experiment with this often and see what happens.]]> false 2013-06-25T03:24:31Z 2013-06-25T03:24:31Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2388 <![CDATA[The Power of Imagination (6-25-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013/the-power-of-imagination/

I first created "Imagination Blindness"/iblindness.org years ago with the belief that vision heavily depends on imagination, and bad vision is due to a person neglecting and losing the power of their imagination. Visualization, or "seeing" in your mind's eye, is a major component of imagination. But it isn't the only part.

Imagination is about ideas, and using them. In dealing with ideas of how best to use your eyes and mind to improve your vision, if you make use of the right idea by assuming something to be true and acting in congruence with it, you will find that your vision benefits. It doesn't work well to go through the motions superficially. You have to be fully involved in the experiment, without holding back.
&tp style="text-align center;"&t&ta href="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/mind1.jpg"&t&timg class="size-full wp-image-390 aligncenter" title="The power of your mind" src="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/mind1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="362" /&t&t/a&t&t/p&t
So the ideas you experiment with will depend on your understanding of the visual system and what exactly is wrong. You are already using this concept, in some way. If you believe your eyes are misbehaving, lazy, or not doing their job, your actions will reflect that, and you will exert muscular tension in your eye muscles to try to get a handle on them. You didn't necessarily mean to tense up those muscles. A lot of small functions of your mind and body will start reflecting the general idea you are running with. When a company has a mission statement, many employees will embrace it, and the owner will find the employees doing interesting things with the mission statement in mind that he didn't even think of doing.

So the best you can do is be clear with yourself about what idea you're adopting. You can always change it later, albeit perhaps with some confusion and adjustment if you've really gotten used to it. You can't micromanage yourself well enough to stop yourself from doing every little thing that isn't in congruence with an idea. You have to enforce it at a broader level by assuming it's the truth and then explore how to embrace it, and after a while see how it's going. This is in contrast to scientific experiments, where the scientist is supposed to remain unbiased and reserve judgement in the interest of not influencing the results of the experiment. But that doesn't work in a situation like this, because your full involvement and belief is necessary.

Here's an example of an idea that I believe is pretty close to the truth. You are only responsible for looking at, and perceiving, a very small area at a time. An area, maybe, the size of a dime at 20 feet away, or the size of part of a letter at a book held 16 inches from your face. You could modify this belief by asserting whatever such size you want to experiment with as being the best size for you to pay attention to. So if this is true, that's quite a weight off your shoulders, because everything around you isn't your responsibility to see except for the one small area you're looking at. So if it's true, what else would have to be true? It would mean you no longer have to deal with seeing a whole word at once on the page in front of you. And that, in turn, would mean you have to keep moving your attention to regard more areas of detail nearby. Would it also mean the quicker you are able to move your attention, the more you see? And maybe unexpectedly you find that in doing for a while you actually are alerted to things in your peripheral vision better. And you might also find that you have to be patient, in a way, in order to see like this. Patience wasn't exactly an idea you had thought of at first.

You couldn't have put all the ideas described in the above paragraph together individually. They had to follow from a broader idea, the idea that you are only responsible for looking at a very small area at a time. From that, a whole collection of behaviors or actions develop.

]]> false 2013-03-29T02:35:33Z 2013-03-29T02:35:33Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2337 <![CDATA[You think that's air you're breathing? (3-29-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/you-think-thats-air-youre-breathing/

First of all, I'm not splitting hairs here for fun. I do have a point that I feel is of practical importance.

Remember the Morpheus-Neo dojo fight scene from the Matrix? Morpheus defeated Neo, and as Neo sat panting, Morpheus asked a question

&tstrong&t"You think that's air you're breathing now?"&t/strong&t

We do breathe air, but the question is profound if you think about it in terms of your vision. As you walk along a sidewalk, do you think that you are seeing other people and cars passing you, of the road in front of you, of the buildings next to you and the birds flying overhead? Right now, do you think you are seeing these words in front of you, as they are?

We instinctively believe that what we see is the world around us. But what we see is the product of our mind. Our eyes can't perceive or form any images for your perception. They only collect light rays bouncing off objects in front of them, and even that only if there is enough light bouncing around. The eyes collect the data of stimulated photoreceptor cells and transmit electrical signals towards the brain, at which point any semblance of a real image, represented by light rays, is gone. What the eyes contribute to our vision is nothing more than a pattern of electrical signals.

The image formed in your mind only partly relies on the electrical signals from your eyes. Your imagination is responsible for forming the image. Your imagination draws from your memory, from your eyes, considers what might be, and forms an illusion for you. It may be hard to believe what you are seeing right now isn't real. It appears so convincing, because the details may be so vivid and complex, and the image may appear to be so unchanging and trustworthy, and the images appear to be everywhere.

&tstrong&t"You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television ... It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes ..."&t/strong&t

What you are looking at is an image created by your mind, a representation of the world in front of you. When you look out the window at a tree blowing in the wind, are you really seeing the tree? It is just like when you point a Â camera at an object and see the object in the display of the camera. You are not truly seeing the object. You are seeing a limited representation of it. Your eyes point toward the real object and gather data, but you can only examine the image in your mind.

So when you think you are examining details on the tree, you are only examining your own mind. Your eyes are pointing at the tree, but you are just looking at a screen in front of you.
&th3&tWhy It Matters&t/h3&t
The practical importance of this knowledge is in the way you attempt to look at things. If your eyes get tired because you are tensing them a little bit, deliberately or not, in an attempt to "see" more, you may be doing so under the impression that your vision is real. If your eyes only contribute to your imagination that is forming your vision, then what you're really doing is visualizing the image with some help from the data from your eyes. This concept takes the pressure off what you think you can or can't "see" with your eyes and shifts the burden on to your imagination.

Also consider that your imagination's level of functioning is measured by your ability to visualize. If you are unable to close your eyes and visualize with at least a little detail an object you have studied in great detail with help from your eyes, your imagination is not functioning at capacity and the image it develops will be significantly of less quality than what is possible.

Do you ever have an image flash in your mind, either when you're daydreaming or sleeping? If you mind has the image stored, why can't you recall the same image, in the same detail, again? What's stopping you? Why do you have a clear image in your mind for a moment at one times and are unable to have it at another time? Why does your eyes being open or closed make such a difference in how easy it is to do so? Why does someone with better vision have an easier time doing so? Why are they able to easily visualize with their eyes open? Why can't you seem to remember what things look like in as much detail as they can? Why do some of them have a photographic memory?

I believe that an imagination functioning below capacity is due to lack of appropriate practice. You have grown lazy with your visual perception. You have relegated your imagination to the menial and mechanical task of pretty much using only the data that the eyes provide. Perhaps it is because of this that the imagination isn't even involved enough to direct the eyes in focusing for the correct distance.

I would suggest a few things
&tul&t
&tli&tIf you work on visualizing what is in front of you that you want to see, or something similar to it, you will stimulate your imagination to begin working as it is supposed to.&t/li&t
&tli&tIf you consider your eyes and what they are pointing at as only of secondary importance, you will start to relax tension in eye muscles and allow them to function better.&t/li&t
&tli&tIf your imagination is stimulated to visualize what is in front of you, it will start to direct your eyes towards getting more information about the object.&t/li&t
&tli&tIf you work on visualizing something other than what is in front of you, you will still stimulate your imagination, which will improve your ability to use it to visualize what you're looking at when you choose to.&t/li&t
&t/ul&t

&th3&t&tspan style="font-size 1.17em;"&tWhere You Visualize&t/span&t&t/h3&t
Many people have a problem understanding "where" they visualize an object to be. I know I had trouble with this too. I think the trouble is due to your visualization quality currently being so poor that you don't believe that you could visualize clearly in that way. You don't try to form an image in front of you, on a blank wall nor on the black/grey field you see with your eyes closed, ie the inside of your eyelids. It is done in an entirely different place that some people have described as the back of their head.

To illustrate this, think of an apple. That first vague image that flashed in your mind was where you visualize. Maybe it was just a vague shape and color, but it was in the right place. Notice that it wasn't in front of you and seemed to have nothing to do with the world in front of you, because you were ignoring the world in front of you while you did it.

Maybe in the next post I'll expand on this topic to help people start visualizing from the right place, if there's any need.]]> false 2013-03-18T02:24:31Z 2013-03-18T02:24:31Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2334 <![CDATA[Visualizing and Seeing (3-18-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/visualizing-seeing/

As kind of a follow up to my previous post, here's another thing to try. &ta href="http//www.iblindness.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2878" target="_blank"&tThe great comments on the forum to my last post&t/a&t got me thinking.

The gist of it is Switch back and forth between visualizing and looking. Here's how.

Once you have looked at and around an object and determined what you can see, spend several seconds or longer visualizing something you've seen. Then look back at the object, or another nearby, and take several seconds to find out if you can see any more details. Then visualize something again, repeating the process.

By doing this, you're keeping the part of your brain active that's responsible for visualization. People find that visualizing something, anything, even if it isn't visualized very clearly, often gives them clearer vision immediately afterwards. But rather than spend a lot of time on visualizing any one thing, just do it for several seconds as suggested, and change it every time to keep yourself interested. I suggested before that the more similar the object you're visualizing is to what you're looking at, the better, but the reported experience of many people suggests that visualizing something entirely different is effective. So do whatever you like. What seems to be most important is if you're doing it at all.

Don't spend any more time looking for new details than necessary, or in failing to find anything new you might start tensing up and hurting the process. And instead of long periods of visualizing for a minute or longer, visualizing something for just several seconds, with your eyes open if possible, keeps you engaged and might help stop you from getting frustrated.

As Nini pointed out in the above linked thread, you need to visualize something you remember seeing. And it needs to be in context. You're really remembering the experience of having seen something, so you kind of need to imagine yourself standing wherever it is, in the conditions you remember. If nothing else you can remember some approximate colors and some vague details, maybe of some things you didn't even intend, and that's good enough. The better you can remember it, the longer you can spend recalling it with benefit. The same goes with looking for details the better you see, the longer you can spend looking for more details with benefit. Otherwise keep switching back and forth.]]> false 2013-03-12T03:54:02Z 2013-03-12T03:54:02Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2328 <![CDATA[Blur doesn't matter (3-12-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/blur-doesnt-matter/

In previous posts I've written about looking at pieces of the blur, in order to identify where you're looking at and to keep stimulating your central vision to get it to wake up. But is that really what's going on? Is it appropriate to direct so much of your energy on the pieces of blur that you see, when the blur is scattered light rays and is a distortion or misrepresentation of what's actually there? By looking at a piece of the blur, what you're really looking at is a detail that is actually from another spot and mixed with other details. It's no wonder it's so hard for you to process it and even figure out where you're looking. How would you direct your attention, when the crossed light rays make it so what you think is in your central vision is really in your peripheral vision, and some of what you think are details in various spots in your peripheral vision are really what you're looking at with your central vision?

The point is you can't trust where you're looking when you see so much blur. What, then, are you supposed to do? What do you have left to work with, if what you're seeing in your central vision is causing further confusion and discomfort, and you're seeing no improvement in your vision? To answer these questions, let's segway to Benjamin Franklin.

&ta href="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/franklin.jpg"&t&timg class="alignright wp-image-359" title="Ben Franklin" src="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/franklin.jpg" alt="" width="132" height="161" /&t&t/a&t
&tblockquote&t&tstrong&t"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things." - Benjamin Franklin&t/strong&t&t/blockquote&t
That's one of my favorite quotes. To me it means we largely create our own problems by putting too much stock in things that don't matter or are just plain wrong.

If that's true, then consider what it means for blurry vision. It would mean the blur that's causing you so much grief for you is not as important as you think it is.

"But," you say, "I want to see clearly, and I have to work with what I have, and in the blur is everything, and I can't improve my vision by ignoring what I see."

Chronic blur from chronically unfocused eyes is an indication that things have gone horribly wrong. It's an indicator the same way that pain is an indicator. And if you let pain occupy your attention and continue unabated, it will wear you down. One solution is to take pain medication, which is analogous to wearing glasses. It may be an okay temporary solution if your problem is only temporary, but a better solution, if you can do it, is to sidestep it by occupying your mind intensely with something else.

So when you do anything to try to fix a blurry image and make it clear, you're overestimating the value of the image that your eyes are taking in. What's more important is the image formed in your mind. What can you imagine to be there? Take note of what you're looking at, but then focus on visualizing what could be there, belied by the blur. Even vague bits and pieces in your mind is fine. You're working on not only activating your atrophied visualization ability, but also synching it with what you're looking at. That way your mind is intensely enough involved in the right way with what you're seeing. Your eyes should start to focus better too, but remember the info from your eyes only makes up a part of what you see. Instead of noticing how blurry something appears, take it as an indication that you aren't forming an image well enough in your mind to assist focusing. That way you're not so concerned about what's only coming in through your eyes and you're instead focusing on your overall perception of what's out there.]]> false 2013-03-05T07:04:49Z 2013-03-05T07:04:49Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2321 <![CDATA[Widened Attention (3-5-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/widened-attention/

Some teachers of vision improvement have suggested widening your attention as part of a method to improve your vision. At first it might seem like that idea is in direct contradiction with what Bates wrote or what I've been writing about. After all, I've said plainly that you have to work on paying attention to the smallest details you can see and imagining other details that you can't see, because your central vision has gone relatively dormant in its function and needs to be stimulated and activated. I've even written about "narrowing" your attention. The thing is, different things work for people temporarily at different times, so it's hard to tell what's really going on to cause instructions like that to be carried out in a way that improves vision, whether temporarily or leading to a Â lasting long term improvement. And we try to describe something that we don't understand very well.

If you were to instead widen your attention, what happens? Would you lose awareness of any details? Maybe, maybe not. It's up to you. It depends on what you think widening your attention means, or what you do to accomplish it. If it gets you to stop tensing your eyes somewhat and gets you to think more about what you're looking at, then that's great.

So it could very well be in line with what I try to get you to do. And I'm trying to get you to stop trying to use your eyes to see. I'm trying to get you to see by using your memory and think about what you're interested in seeing better. Your eyes are still there, and your central vision is still there, whether you try to take control of your eyes or not. Your central vision is activated by your mental attention to seeing details. Your eyes drift towards what you're thinking about. Without your mind intently focused on acquiring information, your eyes are giving dead information that will be treated as such. The details you see have to satisfy your curiosity. Your mind directs what's going to happen.]]> false 2013-03-04T04:00:22Z 2013-03-04T04:00:22Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2320 <![CDATA[Stop Yourself (3-4-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/stop-yourself/

When you catch yourself doing something wrong, doing something with your eyes that you know you shouldn't, stop and pause for a moment. Close your eyes and ask yourself why you did it. Sometimes you'll be able to answer yourself. Other times you might be uncertain why you did it or what you should have done instead. In that case, be honest with yourself by acknowledging your uncertainty. Either way, you have to give an answer. You can't pretend like you know the answer and keep beating your head against a wall trying to see in a way that someone else says is the way to good vision.]]> false 2013-03-03T04:00:07Z 2013-03-03T04:00:07Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2319 <![CDATA[You Are A Placebo (3-3-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/you-are-a-placebo/

The below video explores how patients undergoing fake knee surgeries, where the doctors went through the motions of opening up the knee and pretending to operate, but not actually doing anything, resulted in an improvement in all cases.

&tiframe src="http//www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xex9wu?logo=0" frameborder="0" width="480" height="276"&t&t/iframe&t

It shouldn't even be a question of whether the mind directs the course of healing. I can't imagine how helpless and scared a person would have to be in believing that they have no control over what happens with themselves.

With common vision problems, it's not even a matter of healing so much as it is just subtly adjusting the way you work with your visual system, which should be a comparatively easy task, I think. You're capable of more than you give yourself credit for. Your mind rattles off general instructions more than you give it credit for. Everything it says counts. Everything you think of counts, even while you're sleeping. Do your thoughts in your dreams reinforce your intent, or have you chosen to fail to fulfill your intentions even while you sleep? How much of your time do you spend trying to see in the wrong way while you spend a scant few minutes entertaining the idea of seeing in a different way?

]]> false 2013-03-02T03:15:51Z 2013-03-02T03:15:51Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2318 <![CDATA[Relaxed Eyes Move Easily (3-2-2013)]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-03/relaxed-eyes-move-easily/

You can tell how relaxed your eyes are by how easily you can move your gaze around and how little sensation you get from your eyes while doing it. If each movement of your eye is a small but noticeable feeling of a muscle moving, your eyes are tense. If you find that while practicing looking from point to point you can move your gaze in one direction more easily than another, your eyes are tense. But what you'll notice is the mere act of consciously moving your eyes in any direction will cause tension. If you prioritize working with your conscious attention and letting your interest direct your eyes, and if you don't think about your eyes, you will be able to notice after the fact that your eyes must have been moved by your attention, even though you didn't feel it.]]> false 2013-01-30T04:17:46Z 2013-01-30T04:17:46Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2295 <![CDATA[Your Concentration of Attention]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2013-01/your-concentration-of-attention/

I've written before about how you need to pay attention to each spot you look at so that your mind is fully engaged in seeing details. Here's another way of thinking about how and why you need to look at things in this way.

Each small object or small area you look at should be the most important thing in the world to you. The &tstrong&tonly&t/strong&t important thing in the world. For the moment you forget about other nearby objects you just looked at. When you're stopped at a stoplight, for example, you forget for a few seconds about the stoplight, but you keep glancing back at it periodically to see if it has turned green. If you look at something else while in the same instant trying to remain aware of when the light turns green, you aren't paying enough attention to what you're looking at. Practice looking at a spot for a few seconds at a time, trying to focus all your mental resources on the spot by the force of your will.

You aren't tensing your eyes when working on focusing your mind in this way. You aren't trying to narrow your visual field down to the size of the spot you're looking at. You're trying to focus as much of your attention as possible on the spot, despite the fact that your visual field remains the same size and you aren't really doing anything with your eyes. It's an exercise in ignoring what you aren't looking at. Your eyes are doing exactly what they need to do while you work with your mind.

Change the spot every few seconds. It doesn't matter how blurry it is. Pick spots as small as you can, but large enough for you to see something, even if it's a mess of blur. Keep blinking, and let your eyes remain loose.

I feel that at first it's best to focus primarily on white or light colors and only secondarily on darker colors. Don't try to look directly at black unless you think there's another color within it. On an eye chart, for example, look at the white on the edges and insides of the black letters. Black is not a color. It's an absence of reflected light rays, and it isn't stimulating to the eyes.

If you practice this enough, you should find that it becomes easier to devote your attention to a spot without taking a few seconds before you are able to stop caring about surrounding objects, and you may feel the need to move to another spot sooner than a few seconds instead of staying on one spot for so long. The next spot can be close to the last point or far away. Closer is easier.

You should also find that you see a little better and your'e able to work with smaller spots, which means the distance between the spots can be shorter if you desire.

What you're doing is adjusting your mind's density of attention to fit the pattern it was designed to have, with a high concentration of data in the center and a decreasing concentration outside of the center, which in a simplistic sense is the way the retinal cells of your eyes are also arranged. I can't find a good picture at the moment to illustrate this. But the system can only work in harmony when these elements match. The system has to treat peripheral data differently than central data, and to do that, the system requires that you mentally treat it that way. There has to be no contradiction. When there's harmony, your eyes participate in a process where they are able to focus correctly and move easily and quickly the way they're supposed to.

So to sum up, keep reminding yourself of three things as you work on this
&tul&t
&tli&tKeep your eyes loose&t/li&t
&tli&tLook at white and other colors&t/li&t
&tli&tThe one spot you're looking at is the most important thing in the world&t/li&t
&t/ul&t

As I think about and try to explain these things or guess at what's going on, I'm going to start doing so in a more positive way. It's counter-productive to point out all the possible mistakes you could make, or to tell you what not to do. That just gets you focusing on what you don't want. It's better if you understand enough about what you need to be doing that you can decide for yourself whether something you're doing is helpful in reaching your goals.]]> false 2012-12-30T06:06:07Z 2012-12-30T06:06:07Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2269 <![CDATA[Focus your mind, not your eyes]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-12/focus-your-mind-not-your-eyes/

The Bates method is said to be about relaxing your eyes and mind. I've tried to describe how I understand the method, which is a little hard because I'm not sure what to think. There are so many confusing variables.

But I think a better way to understand and practice the method is&tstrong&tÂ relaxing your eyes and &tem&tfocusing &t/em&tyour mind&t/strong&t. Both are important, and mixing up the two concepts might be a source of endless frustration.

If your vision is blurry, you can't focus your eyes by direct force of will or effort. Or as Bates pointed out, straining your eyes to see better can work a little, or you wouldn't ever bother doing it, but inevitably the misuse results in more discomfort and worse vision over time. Remember, all your eyes can do is point in a direction and receive light. That's their basic function, and beyond blinking, there's not a whole lot for you to do with them. You can't by force of will make them see a smaller area better (what Bates calls central fixation). You can't, in other words, force them to see better. The best thing you can do with your eyes is keep them open, as relaxed as possible, blink as needed, and don't tense them for any reason.

That's part of the equation.

The beauty here is you can do more than one thing at once just by occasionally checking on the other parts and reinforcing your intentions as needed.

When you relax your eyes, you don't have to feel the release of any tension in order to continue on to focusing your mind. Just take a few seconds to stop tensing the muscles around your eyes or face as you can and then let them be. It isn't productive to spend a ton of time on this alone, because you only need it to "set up" for focusing your mind. If you don't do this step, focusing your mind won't work very well. I guess it has something to do with the muscular tension misdirecting your attention or creating noise in your mind. I don't know.

So to focus your mind, one thing you've got to understand is you can take action with your mind without physically feeling it. You already know this, because you have thoughts that you don't feel physically. Applying this concept to your vision means you need to separate your visual attention from the action of your eyes. They will remain connected in the sense that your eyes will naturally look at what you're paying attention to, and you should encourage them to do so. But you have to separate your attention from your eyes so that you can work on your visualization separately without tensing up your eyes as you try to "do something" with your eyes to accomplish the task. And that isn't hard to do. All you need is a pretty good idea what to do.

I think Bates was right on the money when he described how visualizing with the eyes closed is of real benefit, while visualizing with the eyes open is even better and will be necessary. The point is to activate your visualization how ever you can. If you can do it with your eyes closed, your brain activity can continue as you open your eyes, and then you can apply it to visualizing what you see or what you think might be there. And that's what this is all about, as far as I can tell &tstrong&tReactivating the part of your brain that is responsible for visualization, and keeping it going to fully complete your visual perception process in every moment.&t/strong&tÂ That's how you get clear vision, the kind that sticks around. So anyway, as far as practicing this, with your eyes closed it's less distracting, but it might be too empty such that you have a hard time recalling any image at all. With your eyes open you have all kinds of front of you to choose from, but it's more distracting.

To reactivate your visualization skill, keep in mind that the smaller the detail you're thinking of, the easier it is. Remembering someone's face all at once might not work, but if you think of looking at some invisible tiny spot on their cheek, you might sort of remember what their whole cheek looks like, and the color. If you can remember the shape of their mouth, you might might remember the color of it too. And if you can imagine the pupil of their eye, you might remember the color of the iris. The thing about remembering images is they're linked to your other memories and emotions. They have to mean something to you, how ever little. People with great memories have superb visualization, and they come up with all kinds of crazy associations and comparisons to remember things. Even something as abstract as a name they can remember by associating it with other words that they can creatively link to the person somehow. And they do it quick.

If you visualize with your eyes open, it's the same kind of thing, but it makes sense to visualize what you're actually looking at, or at least something of the same color you're looking at. And again, it has to be small. And your brain kind of runs out of fuel right away on every detail you visualize, so you only get each one for an instant, and to maintain it you have to keep moving to another detail.

Keep checking to make sure you're keeping your eyes relaxed and mostly unaffected by your visualization except to move along with your attention. If you feel any dizziness, or sense your vision to be fading, getting darker, or if you feel light prickly or stinging sensations from your eyes, just ignore it all, blink, and continue. If you aren't abusing your eyes, these aren't things to worry about. Weird stuff happens when your brain starts working again and the parts have some rusty communication as they get going. So take it as a good sign.

And I would like to hear from you on what kinds of symptoms like the above you experience.

Obviously if you're doing this, what you're looking at is blurry, so you need to work on your patience and allow your vision to be blurry without reacting to it by tensing your eyes more. You can either visualize the blur itself, and notice the random confusing details in all the globs of blur, or you can visualize details of what you think it should look like, or visualize something else entirely. Honestly I don't think it makes a ton of difference which way you go, as long as you're doing something. As your vision improves, you'll be more inclined to visualize what you're looking at, because it starts to make some sense.

Ok, I'm yawning. That's all for now.]]> false 2012-12-25T01:15:55Z 2012-12-25T01:15:55Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2267 <![CDATA[Can the right food improve your vision?]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-12/food-improve-vision/

If diet can affect innumerable factors in the body such as energy levels, brain and nervous system functioning and blood flow, it makes sense that diet could affect eyesight. But as far as what diet is best, take your pick. Paleo, raw food, vegan, Atkinsâ¦

One thing Iâve heard frequently is that âsimpleâ carbohydrates like wheat and some processed sugars contribute to blood sugar spikes, leading to increased body fat, unstable energy levels, âbrain fogâ and other symptoms.

Modern-day wheat sold in theUS, which is used in most breads and many processed foods, is supposedly very different from that used in the early to mid 20th century due to GMO engineering and is hard for the body to handle.

I had a roommate in college who wore -6.00D contacts for myopia and said that her vision had improved when she went on a special diet, but after a month she went back to her heavily rice-based diet and her vision reverted back. I guess her familiar diet was more important to her.

Mass-produced vegetables sold in stores are said to be relatively nutrient deficient compared to vegetables available years ago due to modern farming on overused land that prioritizes the volume of food over the nutritional value. I sure can tell you that the taste and consistency of some vegetables are complete crap compared to what I remember getting from my momâs garden. No wonder people wonât eat them, especially in some areas of the US that donât have much in the way of diverse crops and the quality of the food that has to be freighted in is even worse. A lot of supplements are available now, but sorting through them and trying to figure out what youâre missing is a nightmare. Synthetic supplements are said to be often worthless and at worst harmful. Whole-food supplements are more bulky but are made by minimally processing nutrient-rich foods to create âsuper foodâ powders that are supposedly better because everything is in its natural form with other naturally occurring elements.

The air in modern cities can be pretty toxic, the city water contains industrial byproducts, and various synthetic chemicals get in our food supplies intentionally or unintentionally. It seems like the list of things that cause cancer is ever-growing. We can thank the resiliency of the human body to cope with it all, but you have to wonder what kind of effect all that extra garbage in your body could have on sensitive processes like vision.

I wouldn't count on reversing long-standing moderate myopia by eating better. I doubt that there is some magic missing nutrient or perfect diet that will solve all your vision problems, because the problems are deeper than that, in a dysfunctional process of how you look at things that needs a significant amount of adjustment.Â But what you eat might at least have some effect on your mental clarity and energy levels so that you can better practice things that do improve your vision and perhaps even have a better intuitive sense of how your vision is supposed to work.]]> false 2012-11-06T03:12:27Z 2012-11-06T03:12:27Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2235 <![CDATA[Why positive thinking works]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-11/why-positive-thinking-works/

You don't have to believe in magic or be that goofy guy on SNL that looks into the mirror and praises himself with positive thoughts. Thinking positively is just another term for thinking about your goals.

When you get stuck in negative thinking, you're actually reinforcing the very thing that you think you're rejecting.

For example, when you tell yourself, "I want to stop doing whatever I'm doing to make my eyes uncomfortable at the computer," what your mind hears is "I want my eyes uncomfortable at the computer."

When you tell yourself, "I want to get rid of this blurry vision," your mind hears, "I want blurry vision."

The part of your mind that drives towards goals is very simple. It takes what you impress upon it, and your actions thereafter will be influenced with that thought or goal in mind. Your goal will remain in the back of your mind and you'll find opportunities to take advantage of situations to make steps in the right direction. But if it's a negative thought that you really don't want, you'll just keep seeing confirmation of that thought everywhere. It's just your limited perception, what you happen to notice.

So you have to refocus your mind on what you want instead of what you want to get away from. Again, there doesn't need to be anything spiritual about this concept. It's just a matter of how your brain works. It's why looking for details, or imagining what could be there, or remembering what something is supposed to look like, is so important. Bates found that you don't even have to think of a clear image of the particular thing you're looking at. Apparently any object you can remember clearly is of some benefit, because it reinforces the general goal of seeing clearly. But I tend to think it's most useful and most natural to put your mind on the clear memory or idea of what you're looking at, if possible, instead of something else you remember clearly.

If you're stuck looking at blurry objects and can't see any details, you are without the benefit of thinking about the details you're seeing, which would keep your intent on seeing details clearly. So you have to jump-start the process. You have to develop an interest in seeing details by thinking about what might be there. Imagine the blur to be composed of as many details as you can manage, and you'll start to actually see the blur morph into a scattered details. It does take time, so you can't give up on it after a few seconds or a few minutes. But your brain is incredibly resourceful and will work at finding ways to make it happen. In this case, the only real change that needs to happen to improve your vision is within the brain itself and your conscious habits, so it's easy to see how you'll be successful at it if you practice staying focused on the idea.

That's what the original name of this website, Imagination Blindness, was all about. It's the concept that vision problems are related to under-use of your mind's visual imagery faculties.]]> false 2012-10-13T02:19:21Z 2012-10-13T02:19:21Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2219 <![CDATA[The eureka effect]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-10/the-eureka-effect/

Here are a couple things that happened years ago.
&tul&t
&tli&tWhen lying down and resting my eyes, I opened them to find that they were straight. I had exotropia at times, where my eyes wouldn't point the same direction, and it resulted in a lot of confusion until I forced my eyes straight. In this moment I realized that there was another way.&t/li&t
&tli&tI was looking close up at a bright light bulb, and I could feel the discomfort of continuing to look at it. I stopped looking at it, but my eyes were still pointed at it. I realized I was still looking at the bulb, but I was doing it in a way that didn't result in the feeling of tension. I was looking at it in a softer, more mentally directed way instead of trying to force my eyes to look at it. I found that as soon as I stopped forcing my eyes to look at it, it was instantly easier to look at.&t/li&t
&t/ul&t
There were innumerable others, but those were two of the most extreme moments.

What are some of your "eureka" or "aha!" moments?

A moment of insight is far more significant than trusting what someone else has said and telling yourself that it's true because it makes sense. There's no substitute for experiencing the truth for yourself. There's no arguing with it.

When you have a moment of clearer vision it's difficult to understand or analyze what just happened. You were using your brain in a different way, and you can't totally understand that other way of using your brain from the perspective of the way you're using your brain currently. You have to understand how you got there mentally and return there to find out what it's all about. If you find that during a moment of clearer vision (a "clear flash"), your muscles relax and you feel a sense of calm before you return to your blurry vision, you will probably try to reproduce that feeling of relaxation and calmness and whatever else you feel like you were doing differently. But in doing so you're most likely trying to reproduce the effects you briefly experienced without regard for what really led to them, and that's why it tends to fail. So sudden temporarily clearer vision isn't necessarily a eureka moment.]]> false 2012-10-04T22:40:54Z 2012-10-04T22:40:54Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2213 <![CDATA[Moving indirectly]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-10/moving-indirectl/

Today I want to again bring up the complex subject of how you move your eyes. It's a major part of the method of vision improvement I promote.

Bates called it shifting.Â A shift, if you're unclear, is just an eye movement, looking from one point to the next. So when you practice shifting, you're practicing moving your eyes, which according to the Bates method is an important element of good vision. So to make sure you're doing it right, you adopt some way of confirming that you're moving your eyes. To confirm the eye movement you might physically feel your eyes moving or see the scene "jump" or slide around. Logically that makes sense. But is that what seeing is all about? Do people with normal vision need to confirm that they're moving their eyes?

What I'm getting at is you should not feel your eyes moving. Every movement of your eyes that you can feel is a sign of stressing your eyes far beyond what is necessary. You should only control your eyes indirectly. You direct your attention and interest towards an object and the details of it, and your mind uses that information to direct your eyes. You can't count how many shifts your eyes make.

Sometimes people try to obtain some sort of positive feeling of relaxation out of their eyes, as if to make up for the feelings of eyestrain. But there should be no feeling at all. There's no need for it.Â Relaxing your eyes means to refuse to move them in a way where you feel them moving. It means allowing your eyes to seem apparently still while assuming that they are actually moving as long as you are paying attention to details. It means you turn your head when a new object of interest is far to the side and you wait for your eyes to center on the object of interest. For objects close to the one you're currently looking at, it means you start considering the details of the object and find your eyes automatically moving towards it.

Think how impossible it would be to throw a ball if you were to concentrate on contracting and releasing each of a hundred different muscles. There's no way you could do it. You have to focus on the basic intention, adjusting your movement when needed but mainly letting your body create a fluid movement on its own.

Important concepts like this are not obvious if you read Bates's material and most other material out there. It's a complex enough subject that you can't assume you understand the method you're using if it isn't improving your vision. Speak out loud to yourself what you think you know about how to use your eyes correctly, as specifically as you can. If you find you have a doubt about something, speak that aloud to, asking yourself the question and offer some possible answers. In this way you are being clear with yourself about what you believe is the correct path and allow yourself to be uncertain about something if you're uncertain. Inner conflicts will eat at you unless you shed light on them and be honest with yourself about what's going on.]]> false 2012-08-19T18:48:16Z 2012-08-19T18:48:16Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2163 <![CDATA[Finally!]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-08/finally/

I finally put up a revised version of my modified Bates method. I collected concepts from my blog posts, forum posts and added more thoughts until I ran out of things to say. I hope to add more pictures and diagrams soon. I know internet users get turned off by a "wall of text".

&ta href="http//www.iblindness.org/davids-method/"&thttp//www.iblindness.org/davids-method/&t/a&t

I also rewrote an older article that helps explain my (and other people's) objections to glasses and interest in vision improvement.

&ta href="http//www.iblindness.org/articles/problem-glasses.php"&thttp//www.iblindness.org/articles/problem-glasses.php&t/a&t

That's about it for the moment. I'd still like to turn part of the website into a social networking site where members can write their own articles or posts, vote up their favorite articles, write comments, post videos, news links, etc. But I'm not sure if the site gets enough traffic for something like that to really take off.]]> false 2012-05-30T03:54:56Z 2012-05-30T03:54:56Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2099 <![CDATA[Your sanction]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-05/your-sanction/

How many times have people helplessly asked whether vision improvement is really possible? Of course it is, but it doesn't matter what I or anyone else knows. If it isn't possible, you'll make it possible.

If you look at anyone who has accomplished something that others considered impossible or infeasible, you will find that a common factor is the personâs irrational belief in himself. He rejects discouragement or failure.

Nothing has to be true unless you give it your sanction. Â You recreate yourself and your world in every moment with your beliefs. Every action you take is a consequence of your real beliefs.]]> false 2012-03-09T15:48:19Z 2012-03-09T15:48:19Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2029 <![CDATA[The Intermediate Step]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-03/intermediate-step/

&th3&tBack Spasm&t/h3&t
This morning I sat on the floor to put my socks on and had a back spasm (at least I think that's the right term). If you haven't had one, it's a sudden pain in a muscle that incapacitates you for a while because it hurts to move. So I laid on the floor for a while, considering what to do. Resting for several minutes didn't seem to help at all. I tried rocking around, to try to get myself moving and try to work out whatever the pain was all about. No help there either. So finally I propped myself up into a painful position, breathed deeply, and relaxed my ab muscles and any other muscles I could. The pain melted away. I did that with a few more positions until I could stand up and go on about my day.
&th3&t&t/h3&t
&th3&tEmbrace the Uncomfortable Step&t/h3&t
In making a point. The idea of your vision improving suddenly, completely and permanently as a result of palming or any other exercise is a tempting one. The idea is promoted a lot throughout material on the Bates method, particularly with that one story repeated over and over of a single guy a hundred years ago who reported that he completely and permanently regained his vision after a long palming session of twenty hours. But look at what that idea really means by considering your motivations for adopting the idea. Are you trying to avoid the middle step of having to pay close attention to blurry details? Is that the step that is most uncomfortable to you? What happens when you start to pay attention to the smallest details you can perceive? You probably have a hard time with it because all the blur gives you confusion about what point you're really looking at, right? If your eyes produce different levels of blur it makes it even more confusing. Are you avoiding this situation altogether by rationalizing that any such feeling you experience there is "strain" and you should therefore avoid the steps that got you into that situation, namely, considering the smallest details you can see?

When you avoid this situation, you remain with blurry vision and expect your vision to at some point by virtue of your commitment to relaxation (or whatever it is you're doing) suddenly leap over that canyon of multiple images and blurry details, into the land of perfect vision. That way you don't have to slog your way down into the canyon and through the swamp. This isn't to say it's impossible for people to do such a leap temporarily or permanently, but most people will find that they have issues with the way they use their eyes, particularly when their vision is inevitably a little blurry again (as everyone with perfect sight experiences now and then), and they are relying on their ability to do that leap each time.

So when you find yourself attempting to see details and fail completely, even where your vision becomes worse than when you started it a moment ago, remember that your success depends on several elements that need to be done right. You have to keep breathing deeply to supply your brain with the abundant oxygen it will need to relearn this process. You will need to blink.

But don't use blinking or looking away as a means of massaging your eyes or "feeling" your eyes again to escape the process when things become confusing or mentally intense, similar to how a child under emotional distress runs to an adult for comfort and is soothed by the adult's hug, the sense of touch distracting the child from his emotional distress and suppressing the emotion into what becomes a solidified part of hisÂ personality/programming. The purpose of examining details and the way you're looking at them is to deal with reality and work on your solution, not to find a means of escaping reality under the guise of "relaxing" and building yourself even more complex problems.
&th3&t&t/h3&t
&th3&tExample Solution&t/h3&t
With my back spasm story, the solution was relaxation, but when I attempted to relax by simply lying on my back it didn't work. I had to get into a painful situation and then relax while remaining there.Â As it turned out, that was all that was needed. With vision, that isn't the complete answer, although you can get some extremely positive feedback from doing so like temporarily better vision or a different feeling around your eyes, face or the rest of your body. You also have to use your attention right, which will drive how you use your eyes and brain together to create a clear image.

So take for example one issue you have to deal with in stepping into the mess of looking for details in a chaotic, blurry mess &tem&tYou don't know what point you're looking at.&t/em&t This has been reported enough times by people that I think it may be significant. If you try to relax your eyes, you might find that you seem to widen your area of attention, while if you try to narrow your attention you tense up your eyes. So consider this logically. You have two tasks that seem to both be necessary but are butting up against each other as if they were opposites. If you have two cars that need to pass each other on a narrow one lane road with no shoulder, what do you do? You could come up with a lot of solutions involving a turnout, a crane or a ramp. The point is you'll need something else to rectify the situation. With this vision problem you just use movement. You keep moving your point of attention around, scanning and exploring areas depending on what you most want to see or what captures your attention or what stands out as the clearest object that you might be able to see the best for a moment. So your question of "what point am I looking at?" is no longer relevant because it's answered implicitly by what part of the image, and the size of that part, that you are most paying attention to from one fluid instant to the next. It's ever-changing, so you never have to nail down what you're looking at, because by the time you can answer the question your attention will have moved.

If you aren't looking at the smallest details of what you can perceive in every fluid glance to the next, you are not actually looking at &tem&t&tstrong&tanything&t/strong&t&t/em&t! All the time you spend not looking at details is time you are spending not really using your vision at all. When you start to do this more continuously throughout every day, you will find that your vision becomes intensely activated and you'll wonder how you ever saw anything before at all when you weren't even looking.]]> false 2012-02-05T20:11:54Z 2012-02-05T20:11:54Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2008 <![CDATA[What could be there?]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-02/what-could-be-there/

&ta href="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/park.jpg"&t&timg class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-266" title="park scene" src="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/park.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /&t&t/a&t

One of the first things you might notice in this picture is the man painting. Your attention moves to him. It doesn't matter whether your attention was "drawn" to him or you were just glancing around the picture to find something worth looking at. You don't notice only the fact he's painting, but what he's painting. It appears to be the scene in front of him.

So in the man's painting, what details can you at least partially see? It's important to note that it counts even if you just partially see something, or if you have a guess as to what might be there. People with blurry vision tend to glance at it and move on, studying it no further, and doing the same thing with pretty much anything else they look at. This is a huge mistake. There are at least a few possible reasons you do this
&tul&t
&tli&tIt seems like too much trouble for you to spend time on looking at details when you don't expect to be able to see anything more by studying it for more than a glance. You have given up, because you've failed so many times. It's hopeless.&t/li&t
&tli&tYou have studied things in detail at other times and find that it's uncomfortable to stare at a small thing, so you have a habit of avoiding it.&t/li&t
&tli&tYou are avoiding the perception of clearer, smaller details because that kind of perception is too intense. You aren't used to the sensation of your brain and visual system working hard, but correctly, and you feel overwhelmed when they begins to do so. It's a bit different than when you wear glasses, because glasses provide artificially clear vision without your visual system having to do very much right (and the consequence of that is almost always worse and worse vision).&t/li&t
&tli&tYou are anxious about looking at one area for too long. This might be complex. You might be afraid that you'll miss something important. This may be due to a past situation where you are repeatedly surprised from the side, or where it was important for you to notice things going on all around you, and you adapted by trying to move your eyes too frequently. Situations might include a combat zone, a sports game, driving a car, or even just having blurry vision and looking around a lot to try to compensate for your bad vision. This can also be more consciously (but wrongly) developed in the belief that better vision requires that you move your eyes around more.&t/li&t
&t/ul&t
The first reason, that it's hopeless, is something you need to intellectually overcome by means of practicing the right way to do it, which is what I really want to talk about. The second reason, that it's uncomfortable, is because you're not doing it right. The third reason, that it's too intense, is overcome with time. The fourth reason, that you're anxious about missing something, is out of the scope of this posting, but it's worth thinking about and can also be the reason you fix your eyes in a stare to try to see everyone at once instead of moving your eyes to specific details.

I guess I just wanted to go over the above reasons behind what you're doing, because it's important to be able to be aware of what you're doing, and your reasons behind it, while you're working to adjust your pattern of looking.

So when you attempt to study an object in smaller detail than you are able to immediately perceive, it appears to be blurry. You can't just let it go. You have to take control of your visual system by enforcing your will. Speaking affirmations in that respect helps align conflicting parts of yourself to your purpose. But your brain / visual system doesn't directly hear such an order of "I want to see!" and respond. The language your brain understands and responds to is your mental refusal to accept the result that your brain is providing. It's the same as telling an employee who has presented a poorly organized, incomplete report to you, "Tell me more. What about this? What are the possibilities?" You are requiring it to dig deeper and work harder in order to serve you to the best of its ability. As you perceive blur at a certain level of detail and can seemingly go no further, you have to guess what might be there. Is there any black? Any purple? Any green? What could the speck of white be? Look at the man's painting in the portion of the picture below and consider such questions.

&ta href="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/park-2.jpg"&t&timg class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-269" title="artist painting" src="http//blog.iblindness.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/park-2.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="196" /&t&t/a&t

Notice what happened as you did it. Your gaze moved around the painting in a search. You were looking around to find such colors and make at least a little bit of sense out of it and actively engage yourself in perceiving, instead of just accepting the image your brain gave you and not considering what it isn't giving you. You became interested. That's what it takes.

Look again. Do you see the grey button on the man's hat? Look carefully, without leaning closer.

If you didn't, that's because there isn't one. But what did you see? You suddenly noticed the shades of darker colors on his hat as you searched for a spot of grey. You just improved your vision, because you saw something you didn't notice at first. Don't think of your quality of vision as just how blurry or sharp it is. Better vision is being able to see things you didn't notice before. So every time you notice something new, because you're looking directly at a new spot with curiosity of what else is there, you have improved your vision, and you should consider it another success. And your brain will respond, and your eyes will start to focus in response to your directing of your attention to smaller details.

So I hope I'm starting to make it clear that improving your vision is not a matter of doing certain things because you're forced to do them if you want to see, but a matter of changing the way you go about perceiving details so that better vision is a completely natural result.]]> false 2012-01-05T13:52:52Z 2012-01-05T13:52:52Z https://www.iblindness.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=1995 <![CDATA[Who is your guru?]]> http//blog.iblindness.org/2012-01/vision-guru/

I want to make a point about following a method of vision improvement to the letter, and trusting that any one person, or even a group of people saying the same thing, have it right.

There's this guy Hira Ratan Manek, going by HRM, who for years claimed (and maybe does again) to be able to live without food due to his sungazing practices. He's got a method where you gradually adapt yourself to sungazing. The guy was outed at one point by someone catching him chowing down at a restaurant near a place he was speaking at about his fasting, and he came out and admitted it. And there seems to be nobody substantiating other things he has said, but the last time I looked into it was years ago. That being said, there's also no evidence that sungazing for short periods of time in the morning or evening is harmful, even if it dazzles your vision for a minute.

I guess what I'm saying is people have a tendency to drop one doctrine for another, like dropping conventional views on eyesight to follow Dr. Bates's words to the letter, or some modern person who has written a book or teaches classes. There certainly are people you can learn a lot from, but I wish people would hold back and be skeptical about everything, no matter which side of an issue it's on, instead of deciding, "Wow that sounds so right, I'm going to believe everything else this guy says."Â Why this need to jump on a boat?

So when you read or hear or consider any little idea about vision or vision improvement, try to consider how it could be right or wrong, and how to test a specific point as well as you can. It's not hard. You don't need a lab. It just takes some self-honesty about what you really know and what you're just going to believe because it's easier. There are so few people out there who look at issues with this level of skepticism and self-honesty, so yes, unfortunately you probably do need to test everything yourself in the small world of natural vision improvement unless humans can get to a point where they can be trusted to look at issues objectively.

It does take longer to learn anything this way, but really you're not learning anything when you just latch onto bogus information.

I bring this up because there are a number of things in Dr. Bates's material that is either wrong or misleading. No disrespect to him - all geniuses are wrong about some things, and he made huge contributions to changing the way we look at vision. But unfortunately some folks who want to improve their vision put a lot of energy into reading and understanding what Bates said and in the process they accept it all as the whole truth, as if the entire truth about obtaining and maintaining good vision is in Bates's material. For a small number of people it seems to be enough. For most, however, it isn't, and they stagnate with a handful of those old ideas that are not working for them or are not specific enough to be have practical value. Even if you take everything Bates wrote at face value, there is far too much guesswork in the specifics that you are forced to do. So what happens is different people come up with countless different interpretations of how Bates's ideas or instructions should be applied, and what's the most important part.

I have written in past posts about the specifics of shifting your eyes and what is really involved in doing so and what kind of pattern you follow, including suggestions about timing and distance of shifts. And there's a lot more to say. And I'm not necessarily right about everything. But I hope I have gotten a few people to open their eyes to the fact that issues like this are just not being addressed in enough detail to make it completely clear how you have to use your eyes in all aspects to result in better and better vision, so what you have instead are very vague instructions that can be followed easily enough but which you can sabotage in so many ways that aren't being addressed. I don't know if anyone out there teaching vision improvement is addressing issues like this. And it isn't easy to figure out, because we all do things right, whether it's vision-related or with other parts of our body, that we aren't conscious of, but ironing out the specifics of this is possible and has to be done.

As it is now, people migrate to whatever specific method most interests them, such as palming, and this is almost always based on the fact that they find the method simple and easy to understand. This also means that it's pretty much worthless the way they're doing it, because when it's easy to doÂ and they don't struggle with confusion about it then they aren't learning anything! So people get stuck in whatever feels nice or feels as if they're doing something or is easy to do while thinking about their day, which isn't much better for their vision than wearing glasses and forgetting the whole thing. Real vision improvement is uncomfortable, because it forces some level of disruption in your programming/personality, because it has to do with the way you interact with the world in every moment. So people avoid what ever is uncomfortable or confusing in how they use their eyes, justifying their actions with the idea of "relaxation" being the key to good vision, implying that anything that feels bad or disruptive is "strain". And they cling to vague ideas or broad principles that are not specific, or in other words they're &tstrong&tblurry&t/strong&t. And they won't let go of those comfortable, soft, blurry ideas. So consider that your own avoidance of brutally examining issues in this amount of detail reflects the way your use your eyes in not understanding the necessity of literally looking with your eyes at small enough details in order to really see anything clearly.]]> false