Improving My Eyesight

Yeah, I know, I’m in the very same situation of yours, William: keeping motivated.

I’m struggling with this trying to mix all the things I like (music, images, staying relaxed, looking for new knowledge about my interested subjects). I mean that I’m trying to create a mix that motivates me toward my goal. I don’t know exactly when I’m going to go back to my perfect eyesight, but I’m sure I’m doing what I have to do and I’m sure as well that I’m always getting better. I mean, even when I’m not doing specific exercises, I think I’m improving. I’m improving in any case.

See you soon

William, maybe you’ll find some inspiration in my 43things.com goals list (there’s “improve my eyesight” as well). I just cheered your only entry on that site, so that you’ll find my profile.

William, I read your comment last month about perscription glasses and getting the courage to ask the doctor for them. I emailed the customer support for Rebuild your Vision and they gave me links to find behavorial optometrists in the area, which I think the same links they use in the book that came with the program. Once I get a little money on hand, I’m going to try to contact one of the offices and ask for a weaker perscription. I’ll probably just say that I would like them because I have a small apartment, and my eyes get tired with my regular strength glasses(which is actually true). I’ll let ya know how it goes.
-Mike

Hi Mike,

just out of curiosity: did you ever wear contact lenses? I think they are the most simple solution instead of asking the optician for a weaker prescription. I also thought that someone of them could be doubtful when being asked that question simply because they couldn’t want to assume any responsability for prescribing something that they wouldn’t normally prescribe. You know, I’m talking about legal issues and things like that.

Another useful thing I’d do (I actually did it some years ago and want to do it again) is to buy one of those necklaces to hang glasses on to (I hope my English is correct). I’ve been noticing since a couple of months that starting the habit to see withouth glasses gives me increasing annoyance when I’m forced to wear them for specific reasons. Yeah, a necklace is not “cool”, but I’ll only use it at home.

Just another question for you all: did you ever noticed changes in your way of reasoning when wearing lenses and when not? I know they say that not perfect eyesight makes people choose in “wrong” ways, and I could (only partially) agree with that, but I’m wondering if my impression of reasoning differentely when I wear glasses is correct… It seems that I feel more anxious or that things, even smaller and otherwise insignificant details attract me more than usual. Anyone had the same feeling?

Third question (I’m really curious). I tried reading a text with and without lenses. This is the result: keeping the text as near to my eyes as I need to read it without glasses, lets me understand it better and faster. Viceversa, when I wear lenses, I can read it from a greater distance but I understand it worse, like I’m reading it just to pronounce words without understanding their meaning. Did you try?

Hey Alex,
I have been wearing glasses since I was 15, and I got contacts for the first time when I was around 19. I am 24 now, and occasionally switch them up. Either way, I never thought one was better than the other because they are both giving me basically the same prescription. I have read that if you are doing things to better your eyesight, you should wear glasses as little as possible or else wearing something with a prescription could counter act against eye exercises and such. I guess its kind of like, say you’re starting a new exercise program to get a flat stomach, and you are doing tons of sit ups and exercises, but them go eat 2 cheeseburgers and a couple pies every night afterwards.
Your other question was about reasoning. I don’t notice myself acting different with my glasses off. Only really that I can’t take in as much around me as when my glasses are on. I think that we still think the same, we just react a little bit differently because we can’t take in everything that is going on around us.
I think today I’m going to restart my eye exercises, as I am off from work. Hope you are doing well!
-Mike

Guys… there are several people who have tried the same eye exercise products and websites that you’re doing and found only limited success with it– don’t take this the wrong way, I’m on your side for vision improvement, but you’re doing it the wrong way, I promise. Vision is largely a MENTAL process. In fact, only one person to my knowledge has ever done intensive studies on how to modify vision through the eye of the mind itself. He was the head optometrist, teaching other optometrsts at the best optometry school in the country during his time (1890-1920), also founder of adrenaline. His name was William Bates.

I’m aware we come across other people’s testimonials and wonder whether that person is lying or not– yes, it’s a pain in the @$$ having to sort through who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. I hate it when people don’t get the facts straight or make up stories. But I’m a person of my word–since doing the Bates Method, I have found that it really does work. My average binocular vision (both eyes simulateously) used to be 4/20, but in a month it became 10/20. Also, I can produce ‘clear flashes’ at will. My most recent ‘clear flash’ just two days ago probably exceeded 20/10 (much better than 20/20), because I could distinguish the strands of hair on people’s head about 1/4 to 1/5 mile away. I could also see the details inside a jet stream about 30-50 miles away.

I must tell you that I’m one of those who has had very unusual results due to not being skeptical at a subconscious level… but how are the clear flashes possible? Well, let me start by explaining that due to the mental component of our eyesight, it is important to address it accordingly in a way that causes the mind to believe it is seeing something differently. How do I consciously produce clear flashes? One way is I imagine anything as being perfect… for example, if you are a myope (nearsighted), look at something up close and remember it as perfect (without straining) as possible. Then look in the distance and close your eyes, and imagine what you just saw up close as being as perfect as possible. Sometimes, it takes timing to catch that “perfect” moment. Then when you open your eyes, while at the same time remembering it perfectly, the world becomes much more pristine all of a sudden. This is known as a ‘clear flash’. It’s very difficult at first for people to imagine something perfectly. Trying to imagine anything perfectly will most likely not be possible at first.

I hate to do this but I insist that you all dump those eye exercises and try the Bates Method instead, right now. Please trust me on this one. I know exactly what’s wrong with those eye exercises and there are many people who use Bates method that originally went with those eye exercises, but the eye exercises revolve around a serious misunderstanding of the eye. What part of our body do we move more than any others? The eyes. Why would the eye muscles be weak? In fact they’re fatigued. They work constantly for 17 hours a day. They need to relax. I know because through relaxing my eye muscles I have also been able to sharpen my eyesight considerably. Eye exercises are similar to going to the gym to pump iron when you’re already fatigued. You may temporarily strengthen the muscles, but the results won’t last permanently unless you constantly do those eye exercises. The eye muscles are under chronic strain, so you have to know how to relax the eye muscles the correct way. Going to sleep won’t address chronic strain of the eye muscles. Bates Method addresses this, but also addresses the mental component of vision, which is just as important.

Bates did case studies on thousands of New York schoolchildren, and he also did a special case study on people who had microscopic and telescopic vision capabilities — i.e. being able to see corpuscles on a glass slide held up to the eyelashes, or being able to see the moons of Jupiter with the naked eye. He discovered that vision, imagination, and memory are interrelated. He claimed that he had been able to cure some people of mental retardation–and after trying his method, it makes sense to me. I’m able to think much sharper and my memory has improved tremendously. It is interesting that you all are talking about “reasoning” right now, and you may agree with me that you can kind of tell with a lot of people with very high myopia corrected around -10.00 or whatever, that they seem kind of insane or make you feel uneasy. The strain is more obvious with people with low to medium myopia, but when it really starts getting up there it warps into something a bit different, that’s more hidden but more shocking or disturbing.

BTW, I saw the 3 Cups eye exercise which you’ve been doing about 9 months ago and I’m pretty sure those exercises are solicited by a man named Orlin Sorensen, and there are many people who use the Bates Method who formerly used Vision for Life and similar eye exercise programs and have complained about misleading advertising by this guy. Bottom line: those eye exercises are are based on misconceptions out there–there are many attractive commercial packages out there that just don’t get it right, and even those that claim to be Bates based have twisted understanding of what Bates really was teaching. He did not support eye exercises, period. He had such a deep understanding of how the eye works, that it seems shocking to discover that someone from 80 years ago could seem to understand how the eye functions even better than our modern day optometrists. I’ve scoured his published magazines and this man was very articulate in language and his understanding of the eye is just shocking.

Some more info to help you consider dumping the eye exercises and using Bates Method instead:

“Bates taught people how to use the eyes properly. He demonstrated how staring was bad for the eyes, because staring intently at an image for a few seconds could cause the image to vanish. This has been proven by psychologists. He taught things like blinking to “dodge” the stare.

Bates method doesn’t work by using exercises for 25 minutes a day, but rather by using techniques consciously everyday until they become natural habits you use subconsciously. Natural habits which are the same eye habits that people with good eyesight use. Such as blinking properly, shifting, oppositional movement, and so on.”

There’s also a history behind the Bates Method, regarding a controversy that sparked between Bates and the Columbia University Board of Optometrists. Now all our optometrists are misled because of Helmholtz’s Theory of Accommodation, which has never been proven and still remains taught to our optometrists since 1855. This changes our whole understanding of what causes refraction errors as well as diseases of the eyes. This theory, according to Wikipedia, wasn’t challenged for 140 years. Look for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz — scroll down and you’ll see it shows “His theory of accommodation went unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century.”

Well, I hope I’ve convinced you all that “all roads lead to Rome” and the Bates method is the “Rome” of eye improvement. I’ll paste a few links to help you get started:

Information about Bates Method:
http://www.iblindness.org/

Forum for posting questions:
http://www.iblindness.org/forum/

Recommended reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Relearning-See-Improve-Eyesight-Naturally/dp/1556433417/sr=8-1/qid=1171419417/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4535734-9580161?ie=UTF8&s=books

Please stop by the iblindness,org forum sometimes and post something there. I go under the alias Spock. You might want to just look around first and see what you think.

I’ll come back later to check and see if anyone has said anything. Please let me know what you think.

Hi Spock, nice to read your comment this morning.

I’m happy with it because I agree with it almost completely, and I say “almost” only because I don’t actually think that non-Bates methods are wrong, instead, I think they all are good because represent a continuous and consistent movement toward a deep knowledge of self-healing through diffusion of concepts that are halfway between “traditional” physical healing and healing with our own mind. I see these non-Bates programs as a help to spread mind-healing through general public, people who don’t yet “believe” but in what they can instantly “touch” with their hands. And I also think that some of those people who bought and went through this programs had and do have eyesight improvement. So, everything is good

By the way, I did find iblindness.org website just yesterday I was looking at Wikipedia’s Bates page and found that link at its bottom. It’s been a real pleasure because I’ve found interesting contents.

For what concerns my practice, I can tell you that I’m not doing any commercial program, but I started a visualization exercise: I’m trying to get the habit of seeing perfectly with my mind all the objects I physically have in front of me. I’m trying to keep these “eye-vision” and “mind-vision” perfectly aligned, like each one is laid over the other. Well, I can say that it’s getting easier the more I do that, and sometimes, when I don’t wear lenses, I start noticing instant improvement. I’m trying to do this practicing while keeping my eyes opened (that could be a difference with your suggestions, I don’t know) because I think that this one is my goal, i.e. seeing with my eyes open.

I hope to give you good news next time we meet here.

Alex

Hi Alex, nice to read your comment too. I realize this is a bit long, but it’s of utmost importance that you read this. Perhaps the most important thing you’ve ever read regarding eyesight improvement and it will clear up many things.

I agree with you on the intermediary ground regarding eye exercises. People need to start somewhere first. I also agree that some people do have success with the eye exercises, but it is limited. Perhaps it’s better if I cite directly from the book Relearning to See, which I’ve already linked above. This is just so you can read a natural vision teacher’s perspective regarding the difference between Bates method and eye exercises.

” The key to Bates’ work was not “eye exercises”–as many people mistakenly believe. People who talk about “Bates eye exercises” often do not understand Bates’ work. Many people fail with the eye-exercise approach because the habits of natural seeing are not relearned. Exercises are practiced for a short time each day; vision habits are for twenty-four hours per day.
It is not due to not doing “eye exercises” the vision became blurred–it is due to the formation of strained vision habits. Therefore, eye exercises are not the solution to blur.
Bates discovered how we are meant to see all day long. He taught his students to relearn the correct habits of natural vision–permanently.
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If students do eye exercises for twenty minutes a day, and then revert to incorrect habits the remainder of the day, they will not succeed. Integration of the habits and principles of seeing as a “renewed visual lifestyle” is the key.
Many people, including many eye doctors, correctly state, “Eye exercises don’t work” or “They only provide temporary benefit.”
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It should be acknowledged here that some eye exercise approaches to eyesight improvement do contain some correct principles and/or habits of natural vision. To the degree these correct habits and principles of natural vision are relearned while doing eye exercises, there can be some benefit. But the benefit is usually temporary because most students do not integrate all of the habits and principles permenantly.
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People and animals with normal sight do not do eye exercises. They have normal, relaxed vision habits.
Oftentimes I like to use the heart as an analogy to the eyes. The heart is a large muscle, but a person does not “try” to pump their blood with conscious effort. In fact, if you attempted to do so, you could interfere with the normal functioning of your heart. If a person has a healthy diet, exercises, reduces stress, and has a balanced lifestyle, the heart takes care of itself–automatically. The same is true with sight.
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Bates taught swings and shifting activities to demonstrate to students correct vision habits. They are not exercises.
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Bates also taught palming and sunning. These activities are not exercises. They are optional self-healing activities which can accelerate the release of strain put on the visual system by incorrect vision habits–habits which many people have had for years.”

This author, Tom Quackenbush, is a well-known Natural Vision Improvement (NVI) teacher. He mentions in the book’s introduction that when he first started out, he read several vision improvement books and did all the ‘eye exercises’ and ‘drills’ and he did not notice any improvement. It wasn’t until he understood the Bates method as it was meant to be understood that he finally had results. The method improves many qualities of the vision system, including “color brightness and variations, contrast, spatial/depth perception, and texture awareness. There is a high correlation between memory and concentration improvement and natural eyesight improvement.”

I hope I’m not dragging on with all this information. Most if it is just quoting anyway. Regarding the clear flashes, you’re correct. I was simply giving a primer on how clear flashes could be produced. I wasn’t sure if you knew. My clear flashes are usually produced with normal, reflexive blinks, and sometimes I trigger chain effects of clear flashes, such as five blinks in a row in which each clear flash gets better. The goal of clear flashes is to be able to produce them with the eyes open as you’ve said, just by blinking normally, and the frequency and duration of clear flashes will increase over time until you eventually acquire what I’ll call the ultimate clear flash, in which the clear flash becomes permanent.

One thing I want to point out: our eye doctors are confused and their studies have come to flawed conclusions since 1855. There is a reason why this has happened. Helmholtz’s theory was created through the use of candles, rather than electronic lighting. The first publicly demonstrated light bulb wasn’t invented until 1879. Then his theory wasn’t challenged for over 140 years. Bates discovered an error in the theory, which would’ve changed our whole understanding of what causes refractive errors and diseases in the eye. He had been the leading optometrist for 15 years at the best optometry school in the U.S. but the Board of Optometrists’ worst fears were confirmed when Bates walked in with the evidence. The very concept that people could heal their eyes and not need to make visits to the optometrists would’ve put them out of business, so they did have a legitimate (although unethical) reason for removing Bates from his teaching position, publicly ostracizing him in order to protect their jobs.

It’s crucial to understand the history in order to understand WHY the Bates method is probably the real thing. It was tested for 30 years by Bates himself, and could cure all kinds of vision problems including serious diseases of the eye. His writings in his journals show his real brilliancy. Many optometrists call him a quack because they just don’t get it, the whole history and culture mindset that comes with it; they’ll try to find a few minor flaws in the method and then disregard the whole method. Bates did not know everything that we do know now, but he was decades ahead of his peers. Here’s one experiment you can do regarding the Helmholz theory. Ask any optometrist this: What causes the eyeball to change shape, to enlongate from front to back or horizontally, producing refractive errors? They cannot even give a conclusive answer if you were to ask them. They may explain away by saying it is hereditary. There are a lot of things explained away about the eyes in the school textbooks. They don’t know what causes differences in eyeball shape, yet they say presbyopia is hereditary. However, if the eye muscles are what causes change in eyeball shape, then that could probably do away with the presbyopia myth as well as our understanding of how the eye acquires diseases.

If the eyeball changes shape, it can also change the lens curvative – and this would cause what? Cataracts. But the eye doctors are addressing it from a lens perspective, rather than the 6 extrinsic eye muscles perspective, because they don’t know what’s wrong with Helmholtz’s Theory. They think cataracts are caused by old cells which accumulate inside the lens, and they attribute it to aging; but they just do not see how pressure from the muscles squeezing the eyeball can in turn affect the lens, causing it to cloud up with those “old cells”. Their research is really messed up because of Helmholtz’s theory, and you’d think they are on top of everything, but they are not despite what many people think. Why else would many of our eye researchers not challenge Helmholtz’s theory for so long, since they’re on top of “everything”? Do you understand now? Much of Bates’ own studies revolved around the extrinsic muscles of the eye, and the mental aspect of how we see.

Well, I can tell this must have been a lot of information to absorb. But I felt it was important enough you know all this. I’d like to hear your thoughts regarding all this, plus any good news you have regarding eyesight improvement, one way or another. I will try to keep my posts shorter from now on. Thanks for encouraging discussion.

Okay, one more post before I stop. I felt the need to show this so you have further understanding of how the researchers explain away things.

I asked the question about what causes the eyeball to change shape, and someone explained:

“Faulty genes and modifications in genetic expression (how actively the information stored in a gene is transformed into a protein) is considered to be the leading cause of myopia and has an inheritance pattern which confirms a genetics etiology (cause).”

But there’s a problem with this. There are studies which have been done on Eskimos that suggest otherwise.

Evidence:

Young, F., Baldwin, W., Leary, G. and D. West. 1969. —The Transmission of Refractive Errors within Eskimo Families.“ American journal of optometry and archives of American Academy of Optometry 46: 676-685.

“This the most cited paper in the regarding myopia. The paper is a classic and discusses how a small Eskimo community had a sharp increase in myopic individuals. Early generations had a very low prevalence of myopia but the generations that were introduced to modern schooling and activities showed a significant increase in myopia. 1.5% of the population 41+ years old has myopia, whereas 51.4% of people ages 11-40, who had attended modern schooling, have myopia. Young et al. has sets the stage for present myopia discussion regarding the evolutionary development of myopia. Between genetic and environmental factors, Young et al. finds that environmental factors play a larger role in causing myopia.”

Link 1: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:pxbVbhzJIwIJ:domingo.zoology.ubc.ca/isci350/AnnotatedBiblios/MyopiaBiblioFinal.pdf+Refractive+Errors+Within+Eskimo+Families&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=17&gl=us

Link 2:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=5265188&dopt=Abstract

Therefore, it is possible that refractive errors have nothing or very little to do with genetics. The evidence’s right there. Researchers just don’t know the real cause of refractive errors due to their limited framework approach towards understanding how the eye works.

Hi Spock, I read all your post. I agree with you completely and add that, even if eyeball deformation shouldn’t have been due to extrinsic muscles misuse, well, it could be intentionally re-adjusted changing muscles habits, I mean, even if eyeball shape would have been ereditary. Don’t you think? Anyway, this is just for skeptic people. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge here.

Hi Alex,
I don’t know what happened to my other post citing the Eskimo study. It seems to have disappeared, and I feel like I’m being filtered here. Is there some set of rules here that need to be followed?

I saw nothing wrong with my post on the Eskimo study. This is essential information that needs to be shared to get an understanding of what is going on with research procedures. Here it is again:

I asked the question about what causes the eyeball to change shape, and someone explained:

“Faulty genes and modifications in genetic expression (how actively the information stored in a gene is transformed into a protein) is considered to be the leading cause of myopia and has an inheritance pattern which confirms a genetics etiology (cause).”

But there’s a problem with this. There are studies which have been done on Eskimos that suggest otherwise.

Evidence:

Young, F., Baldwin, W., Leary, G. and D. West. 1969. —The Transmission of Refractive Errors within Eskimo Families.“ American journal of optometry and archives of American Academy of Optometry 46: 676-685.

“This the most cited paper in the regarding myopia. The paper is a classic and discusses how a small Eskimo community had a sharp increase in myopic individuals. Early generations had a very low prevalence of myopia but the generations that were introduced to modern schooling and activities showed a significant increase in myopia. 1.5% of the population 41+ years old has myopia, whereas 51.4% of people ages 11-40, who had attended modern schooling, have myopia. Young et al. has sets the stage for present myopia discussion regarding the evolutionary development of myopia. Between genetic and environmental factors, Young et al. finds that environmental factors play a larger role in causing myopia.”

Link 1: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:pxbVbhzJIwIJ:domingo.zoology.ubc.ca/isci350/AnnotatedBiblios/MyopiaBiblioFinal.pdf+Refractive+Errors+Within+Eskimo+Families&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=17&gl=us
Link 2:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=5265188&dopt=Abstract

The Eskimo study reveals that genetics may not be as significant a role in vision problems as we originally thought. The evidence’s right there in how the eyesight of a younger generation (11-40 yrs old) abruptly became myopic by an astonishing percentage and was worse than its predecessors (41+ years old) once the younger generation started attending modern schooling. There is compelling reason to believe that myopia is not necessarily genetic, but epigenetic instead. Even if eyeball shape were to be genetic somehow, it suggests that there is a driving force behind what makes vision worse other than genetics.

By the way, I specialize in negotiation and persuasion. I study not only communication but cultures. Healthy skepticism consists of questioning everything, including entrenched cultural beliefs like the belief that the researchers are on top of everything. Skeptics oftentimes do not question those things, and that does not make them intelligent skeptics; it is self-defeating and makes them vulnerable to brainwashing. In cultural anthropology, this is referred to as ethnocentrism.

It needs to be understood that science is prone to “swings” of groupthink…and this can lead to a trend of misinformation in the public, so it’s an individual’s job to decide what is acceptable–by trying something and not being too dependent on a group’s way of thinking.

But most skeptics don’t do this, because they’ve been hoodwinked by assumptions. It sounds irrational being skeptical in that way, doesn’t it? Just food for thought. What do you think?

I wrote an important article here:

http://www.iblindness.org/forum/index.php/topic,371.msg1757.html#msg1757

Haha wmeng24…

You should look into the Bates Method, it is NOT boring… I read your post in the last blog topic William made and you mentioned you were getting bored with the eye exercises. Natural vision improvement pretty much started with Bates in the last century. Bates’ methods had absolutely nothing to do with ‘eye exercises’ but techniques.

He was simply someone who was brilliant at neuroscience, decades ahead of everyone in this respect, and he discovered a few things that even our modern neuroscience “experts” have not unearthed yet, such as making mental imprints on the mind to create ‘clear flashes.’

The Bates Method teaches you about the following:

1) healthy eye habits which are exactly the same used by people with perfect sight
2) relaxing the muscular and nerve system to benefit the vision system, including relieving blindness (and other refractive errors and serious diseases of the eye, including cataracts, glaucoma, retina detachment, and macular degeneration)
3) creating mental imprints which drastically improve eyesight, similar to the idea of what many people would call “muscle memory”

The optometrists cannot understand how 2) works because of Helmholtz’s Theory of Accommodation which has completely stunted their research procedures.

End of rant no. 7437

Hi Spock, here I am.

For what concerns skeptics, some time ago I was suggested that Bates’ method is “quackery” and I was given this webpage as an “evidence”

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/eyequack.html

I tried reading some of it, but it’s not what I’d like to hear so I didn’t have enough patience to read it completely. Anyway, that’s an evidence of what you were telling about “assumptions”.

As regards my practice and my “relationship” with Bates’ method, I can tell that I’d like to practice these techniques (some of which I probably already know, at least a bit) but I’d like to learn them without reading a whole book. Maybe you know some “shortened” information explaining the habits and mental imprints (and any other essential concept) that should be learned?

Thanks a lot!!!

PS: I had a look at iblindess.org finding Bates’ book but it seems to be too big for me at the moment…

Regarding the quackery website, I’ve seen it before. But it needs to be understood that it is a website that allows access even to the intellectual tyrannys of science. Even the Better Business Bureau (BBB) isn’t always trustworthy; they allow themselves to be “bribed”, thereby raising the ratings of websites that have paid to be members of BBB. Anyone can call something quackery, and if it corresponds with what the owner of the quackery website believes, it will be allowed on there. Richard Feynman, who assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantum electrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and cut to the heart of the Challenger disaster, once said, “The experts who are leading you may be wrong. I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television–words, books, and so on–are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.”

The “telephone game” is true even among our scientists. One scientist can distort the information of another scientist. Also, http://amasci.com/miscon/myths10.html points out, “Unfortunately, while such a check and balance system would be useful, the number of findings from one scientist checked by others is vanishingly small. In reality, most scientists are simply too busy and research funds too limited for this type of review.

The result of the lack of oversight has recently put science itself under suspicion. With the pressures of academic tenure, personal competition and funding, it is not surprising that instances of outright scientific fraud do occur. However, even without fraud, the enormous amount of original scientific research published, and the pressure to produce new information rather than reproduce others’ work dramatically increases the chance that errors will go unnoticed.”

It is easier to understand how assumptions come about from all this. Communication in research is not as organized as one would imagine it to be.

Correction to what I said in last post: “thereby raising the ratings of businesses that have paid to be members of BBB.”

Eyesight is often associated with quality of life, so it’s important to learn as much as you can to help your eyesight. The Bates Method is largely about neuroscience, and several of the techniques are based on how well the individual understands it. The more information the individual is exposed to, the better the individual understands how to do the technique correctly. The original Bates book may be difficult to read, so I recommend this book, which has 5/5 on every review at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Relearning-See-Improve-Eyesight-Naturally/dp/1556433417/sr=8-1/qid=1172530323/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6885071-9443251?ie=UTF8&s=books

In that book, you can just skip pages and go to where it explains about the principles and habits involved with the Bates method. It gives you an excellent starting place. For a very short summary of the Bates Method, you can also look at: http://www.i-see.org/bates_nutshell.html

I have some shortened information I wrote up about how to produce clear flashes but I’ll post it later at the iblindness.org forum.

Thanks a lot Spock. I’ve given a look at the “nutshell” page and it’s really nice. I don’t know if I can easily get Quackenbush’s book but, in the meanwhile, I’d like to know your opinion (if you have any) about a book by Margaret Corbett I found on the web translated into my native language (I’m not English/American); it should be this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Better-Sight-Margaret-Corbett/dp/0879800488/sr=1-2/qid=1172578891/ref=sr_1_2/105-1803954-7458043?ie=UTF8&s=books

Maybe I could read this one for now, without buying other books… I also thought about printing it (it’s a PDF) in small characters, since I read about Bates’ (?) practices with “micro-letters” or similar stuff… Did I get it right?

By the way, I subscribed to iblindess.org forum. My username is… Alex

You are welcome. I have that book by Corbett, it’s pretty good. She has what seems like hundreds of different ways you can do Bates’ own concepts in that book, so it can seem a little overwhelming for a small book. Bates doesn’t even mention a lot of them, but she trained with Bates. Her drills (techniques, not exercises) seem to follow in accord with Bates’ own understanding.

The other book I had recommended, Relearning to See, covers Bates’ own ideas in a very straightforward manner, by describing the fundamentals and showing quotes directly from Bates. Corbett’s book is still a very good way to start, she does introduce you to Bates but my personal opinion was that I got a more straightforward, outlined introduction to Bates own ideas through the book Relearning to See.

You should get Corbett’s book anyway. You’ll be fine. Bates did mention using diamond type (fine print) as a technique because very small print is readable within 10 inches only if your eye is not straining, and when you are able to see that close, you find that you are also able to sometimes counteract strain in the distance and see further.

You don’t need to print in such small text, but small text is still better than large text; do it as small as is comfortable for you. The problem with large text is that you are trying to regard a larger area at once when you read the words, and visual acuity has to do with being able to see the smallest point (detail) possible. By learning how not to strain when you read very small print, you are much less likely to strain when you regard a smaller acuity in the distance. Does this make sense?

I see that you signed up for the forum. That’s great. I made a post called Clear Flash Primer: http://www.iblindness.org/forum/index.php/topic,425.0.html

It’s pretty much what was taken from this discussion and then some more.

Just wondering, these exercises u can do are they with or without, wearing your glasses

you can improve your eyesight by palming and rotating your pupil both clockwise and anti clockwise direction for 15 min daily. moreover, dipping your head into the water tub does help improve your eyesight. In any case, swimming is the best alternate solution.

my small success story

hey everyone
i have astigmatism only wish was -4
and after doing eye exercises for about 3 monthes 10 min aday
it became -3.75
i know it is small improvement but i’m so happy wih it

oh ……
by the way

i wasn’t on “rebuild your vision” program
i was JUST doing FREEEEEEE exercise on this web site:

http://www.holisticonline.com/Yoga/hol_yoga_pos_eyeex.htm

i hope you enjoy it

I can’t add your feed to Feedburner. How I do this?