5 Suggestions for Palming

Palming is the first thing Dr. Bates taught for vision improvement.  I’ve compiled a summary here of the ‘how to’ basics that I’ve learned along the way.

how to palm

First, warm up a bit – do anything that will get circulation to your hands and deepen your breathing.  I’ll go into this more in my next post.

position: lie down or sit. The palms of the hands lightly cover the closed eyes.  The hands don’t touch the eyes, but softly close around the eyebrow and cheekbone. The elbows should be supported comfortably.  Position the back and chest so that the breath is as free as possible.  As you palm, make very small adjustments now and then with your fingers, hands and arms.  This keeps the blood flowing and relaxes the muscles.  In this way, palming is calm, but not rigid.

5 suggestions for palming

This week’s book club is the April 1927 Demonstrate: Palming article.  this article is not on central-fixation.com.  Clark Night offers a very low cost digital version of the Better Eyesight magazines.  I will summarize the points of the article here, mixed in with my own suggestions:

1.  When palming is successful the visual field is dark.  After palming the vision is improved.  If your vision is not improved after palming, then use some suggestions here to change the way you palm.  If it still doesn’t work for you, then don’t do it.  There are many more relaxation techniques that Dr. Bates taught, which I also discuss on my blog.  After your vision has improved in other ways, then consider palming again.

2.  Demonstrate that remembering something imperfectly while palming does NOT improve the vision.

3.  The conclusion is then:  If you use the memory of an image while palming, remember something that comes easily and can be remembered perfectly.  Dr. Bates uses the example of a letter ‘O’, but you can use any pleasant memory  – from any of your senses.  You can always test if you did it correctly, because your vision will then be better after palming.  If not, then you know you need to do something different.

4.  Palming becomes successful by the things that are not done.  This is an important statement!  Don’t try, don’t strain to remember something, don’t try to imagine something difficult, don’t do anything! Just rest, let go.

5.  Demonstrate the improvement you gain after palming for 2 minutes.  Then palm for 5 minutes, then for 10 minutes, then for 15 minutes and so on.  Everyone has a different ‘optimum’ amount of time.  Discover what is best for you by trying out palming for different lengths of time, and at different times of day.

when to palm

In various articles, Dr. Bates wrote the following suggestions to guide his patients on how much to palm.  Note!  He never wrote all of these suggestions in one single article, I’ve simply compiled them here.  Start with one option from the following list.  Once that is a habit, add a second option.  If palming improves your vision once, then consistent practice is a great way to make that benefit permanent:

5 minutes every hour
30 minutes before sleeping
upon waking
30 minutes after practicing with the Snellen chart
before and after working

I go through phases when I’m more or less disciplined with palming.  I’ll admit, my most disciplined palming phases only last a week (with fantastic results).  So I should rather say: I usually only palm now and then.  My goal is to make it a consistent habit, like my habit of reading the Snellen chart and going for walks every day.  I’ll start with doing it consistently before and after work, that is the most realistic for me right now.

Book Club: The First Visit

The book club is starting up again, this time with Bates’s magazines.  For this week, I chose one of the medium length articles about how he teaches people in the first visit.  It can be found online here:  http://www.central-fixation.com/better-eyesight-magazine/better-eyesight-1921-11.php#first-visit

The way the book club works is simple.  Read the article.  Try it out.  For best results, grab a friend and practice together.   It’s not expected that everything will work for you.  Just explore and use some creativity to modify the instructions so that it is interesting for you.  If something improves your vision, even temporarily, write it down and practice it again tomorrow!  If something doesn’t work, don’t worry, just move on. Finally, to complete your book club experience, post a comment and let everyone know how you’re doing.  I try to keep these posts as short as possible so that you spend more time practicing and less time online

This article is ideal for those of you who have formed small groups of friends/family to practice the Bates method together.  Grap a friend, read the instructions, and try it out together.  What you need to do this is a Snellen chart (or calendar, or anything else with different sized text) and an hour or so of time.

Perhaps you aren’t sure where to start or what to say?  It is difficult to know if you should start by explaining who Dr. Bates was or how the method works.   The answer is, start at the beginning and demonstrate as you go along.  As the opening of this article states:

In the beginning of treatment, as well as later, it has been found to be a great benefit to have the patient demonstrate facts. It is better to avoid stating results expected, and instead let the patient discover the results for himself.

For anyone learning, practicing, or teaching the method, there is rarely better advice than this.   We are very results oriented.  We want to know in advance, will it work for me? how long will it take?  Dr. Bates recognized the anxiety that can be caused by expectations and this advice goes a long way toward relieving that.
It will take an hour, to an hour and a half to get through this lesson.  I wrote the following as a cheat sheet to use to remind yourself what to do after reading the article.

1. Put up a Snellen card or calendar.  Look at the card; note where you stand and what can be seen.
2. Follow the instructions to close eyes for 30 minutes and remember pleasant things.
3. Look at card again from the same distance as before.  Is your vision better/ worse?  What improved the sight?  If the sight didn’t improve, were you resting or restless?
4. Palm 10-30 minutes in a comfortable position; how does everything look now?
5. Demonstrate the stare.  Then improve the sight by resting.
6. Get up and move around for the shifting and swinging demonstration.
7. With the section on memory and imagination, remember to do it with rest in mind.  You can just as easily apply what he writes about memory and imagination to anything that is easy for you to remember and imagine.
8. The article closes with suggestions for further practice.  The first one shows one method of using the Snellen chart to improve vision.  Similarly, the second point shows how to use fine print.  The third point is something to do all day long.

This article is packed with information.  Reflect on the single thing that helped you the most.  Be creative and practice with it to improve your sight over the next week.

When I followed the instructions in the article, I found the biggest improvement in sight was simply from sitting and relaxing, thinking of pleasant thoughts.  It does take a lot of mental control because my mind constantly tries to wander in the direction of worries instead of pleasant memories.  In these cases I bring my attention back to my breathing.  Practicing with the Snellen chart is something I also have long term experience with.  It won’t improve the sight overnight.  I use the chart daily for a short time.  I demonstrate a Bates technique to improve my vision and then go on with my day.  It adds up after a while!

Ch. 32 Reason and Authority

REASON AND AUTHORITY

I find this the most eloquent piece of writing in Dr. Bates’s entire career.  Despite success with patients, he painfully dealt with rejection within his profession over his entire career.  It makes sense that he had a lot of time to observe the weakness of human nature in this regard.

The opening:

SOME one—perhaps it was Bacon—has said: “You cannot by reasoning correct a man of ill opinion which by reasoning he never acquired.” He might have gone a step further and stated that neither by reasoning, nor by actual demonstration of the facts, can you convince some people that an opinion which they have accepted on authority is wrong.

reminded me of something my grandfather used to say:

“Don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind”

This is his sarcastic response to people’s idiotic belief in a principle against the facts presented to them.  Read the chapter, click here, it’s well worth your time!

After reading the chapter, you might wonder, despite the belief in authority, how do these optometrists sleep at night knowing that they are swindling the public when a natural alternative to glasses and surgery exists?!  The answer is, really, they truly believe what they are doing is the right thing.  It all boils down to statistics, and how easy and common it is in science to make big mistakes by disregarding outlying data.

A lesson from statistics.  How does science work?  You make a hypothesis such as “near work causes myopia”.  Then you gather some data.  Let’s say you look at a population of indiginous people of a certain age that don’t spend any time with books and none of them have myopia.  Then you study the same age group in a classroom and find 50% have myopia.  The trap of statistics is that many people would conclude that the statistics “proved” that near work causes myopia.  In fact, you can’t prove a hypothesis with statistics, you can only disprove it.  Recognizing this and other observations, Dr. Bates wondered why not all of the children exposed to near work acquired myopia.  Dr. Bates then made a hypothesis, “strain to see at the distance causes myopia” and he gathered data in school children.  Those that were taught not to strain at the distance recovered from myopia or never acquired it compared to those that weren’t trained not to strain.  His hypothesis isn’t proven, but supported by his observations.  What is the competing hypothesis?  That only some children acquire myopia because something is physically wrong with the shape of their eye which can’t be cured.  This is an example of how statistics can disprove a hypothesis.  Dr. Bates observed that many cases of myopia, presbyopia, cateract, and glaucoma, among other eye problems, could spontaneously improve.  With more study, he discovered how to treat these problems to improve the condition.  By doing this, he showed that myopia can be cured, which disproves the hypothesis that it can’t be cured.  So, how does a hypothesis then become known as a truth if you can’t prove it?  In general, this happens when competitors can’t come up with any more data to disprove it, or the people who support the competing (and wrong) hypothesis grow old and die.  Sounds funny, but I’ve seen in many areas of research that that is in fact how science works.  The optometric industry is so big now, that it can’t grow old and die because there are thousands more going to the schools that teach that myopia can’t be cured, and they are then following authority and believing it as a truth.  That’s where this chapter comes in, Dr. Bates eloquently explains how a belief accepted by an authority is unshakable with facts.

The industry claims that cures are rare and therefore disregarded from the facts.  This is an example of how statistics can get you in trouble.  In general, statistics are supported by a distribution in the data where most of the data follows the hypothesis, and the cases that don’t follow it are so few and far between that they are discarded as erroneous.

Here is a story about how two balloons sent up in to the atmosphere to measure the levels of ozone around the globe.  One discovers the hole in the ozone layer, the other doesn’t. Why the difference?  In the first balloon, they had made the observation, that above their own country, the concentration levels of ozone in the ozone layer followed a normal distribution and were on average 0.7  (I’m making the numbers up for simplicity!)  They observed that within a certain range (in statistics jargon, within 3 standard deviations of the mean), say within 0.5 and 0.9, they can be sure there are no ‘outliers’ of false data.  Any data outside of this range is discarded and not used to compute the mean concentration of ozone.  When measuring at the ozone hole, all data at a concentration of 0 is then thrown out and only the outliers used to compute the mean!  Therefore, no hole was found.  A different country sends up another balloon, this time without the fancy statistics programming, and they discover the hole in the ozone layer purely because they looked at the data before throwing any of it out.

People supporting the Bates method would say this is what modern optometry has done.  Bates says, some people with no lens in their eyes can accommodate, so therefore there must be a way to accommodate without it.  They say, those cases are so rare we discard them and don’t think the way they accommodate is possible for everyone.  They say they have proven that the lens can be responsible for accommodation and therefore nothing else is.  Bates says he observed the exterior muscles can accommodate and a lensless eye can accommodate, therefore the lens doesn’t.  However, in the heat of the discussion, neither realized that either observation doesn’t prove that it is the only mechanism of accommodation.  It is unfortunate that a ‘grand unifying theory’ of accommodation was never sought out.  Instead, Bates went his way and modern optometry continued to be modern despite not reacting to observations poking big holes in its theory.  In this way, any facts showing that myopia is reversible are disregarded by the industry because they can’t fit those facts into the theory they believe as the truth.

Well that’s it, I hope you gained a lot from a careful reading of Dr. Bates’s book!

Chapter 30 and 31

Ch. 30, Ch 31

Chapter 30 shows how Dr. Bates believes his method can be used for the military.
Chapter 31
I enjoy reading reports from people in their own words about how their eyesight has improved.  It reminds me of the first time I experienced these things without glasses, there is such a marvelous feeling of discovery.  There are many more reports in the magazines. I’ll put in some of the quotes from this chapter that reminded me of things I have experienced and have read of many other people on the iblindness forum experiencing.

Without glasses people often notice that they see more depth, and enjoy the spatial quality of natural vision more:  “Things seem to me now to have more form, more reality, than when I wore glasses.”

It is difficult to go back to glasses once you have learned the Bates method:
“The glasses I especially wanted to push away. They brought irritation at once. I took them off and felt peaceful.”

Creativity is improved:  “I teach better. I know how to get at the mind and how to make the children see things in perspective. …What you have taught me makes me use the memory and imagination more, especially the latter, in teaching.”

People notice they are calmer:
“My nerves are much better. I am more equable, have more poise, I am less shy.”

The mind is more focussed:
“To sum up the effect of being cured upon my own mind: I am more direct, more definite, less diffused, less vague. In short, I am conscious of being better centered. It is central fixation of the mind. I saw this in your latest paper, but I realized it long ago and knew what to call it.”

As a result of a calmer and a more focused mind, tasks can be done efficiently and with less effort:
“I particularly noticed his serenity of mind after treatments. In this serenity he seemed able to do a great deal of work efficiently, and not under the high nervous pressure whose after-effect is the devastating scattering of forces.”

Since improving my eyes, I have received many comments as to how bright and alive they look. This is a very common effect of the method!
“I was surprised and pleased at the comments of my family regarding the appearance of my eyes. They all thought they looked so much brighter and rested”

Ch. 29 Mind and Vision

MIND AND VISION

Part I are my thoughts on the chapter written by Dr. Bates. Parts II and III provide links to some related thoughts that other people have written about on the web.  The common theme is how the mind influences vision and healing.

Part I.

I think this quote says it all:

“When one is not interested, in short, one’s mind is not under control, and without mental control one can neither learn nor see. Not only the memory but all other mental faculties are improved when the eyesight becomes normal. It is a common experience with patients cured of defective sight to find that their ability to do their work has improved.”

I agree with this 100% and have experienced it myself.

Many people on forums argue with this that they know of someone who has photographic memory and they wear glasses, and other examples.  Further, many academics wear glasses, and by Bates’s logic that means they must not have been able to learn and get so far.

However, there is a different way of looking at it.  How much effort does it take for these people with glasses to achieve their success compared to their peers who don’t wear glasses?  How much more could these people have achieved without glasses?  With the effort required to maintain the knowledge for their area of specialty, what other memories are they giving up or losing?  Do they remember the color of their children’s eyes?  How long do they remember details?

I could always study for an exam and get the best grades, but if I had to take the same exam 1 year later, I would do worse than the same students I had gotten a better grade than.  This happened time and again.  In college when I would study wtih people, all of whom had better eyesight than myself, they would say, ‘don’t you remember that from last semester?’.  I wouldn’t, and my education was a process of knowing that a concept existed, knowing I had learned it once, going back to refresh, and then moving on with the next lesson.  It was my persistence, not my memory, that was responsible for getting me to my phd position.

I have always had a hard time remembering faces (in addition to forgetting names!).  Let me tell you, it’s extremely embarrassing to meet someone, then see them again the next day and have no recollection of even seeing them.  I’ve always worked around this with conscious effort.

My sense of direction is horrible unless I have a map and I put in effort to notice details.  I will have to go over complicated routes multiple times before I have a chance of finding my way without a map.  My husband on the other hand, can look at a photograph of a street that we visited more than a year before only once and immediately know which town it was in, what was nearby, and how we got there from the car.  He has perfect sight.  I don’t even recognize anything in the picture!

As my vision improves I find that I can do my work better and with less effort.  I am more natural with people and remembering things they told me.  Also, when I first met my husband (before I started the Bates method), he was always right when it came to remembering where to go when we went somewhere the second time.  As my eyesight improves, I find that if I wasn’t wearing glasses the first time we went somewhere, I often remember the way better or just as well as he does the second time around!  In fact he says it’s really confusing for him, because since I have many incomplete memories (from times when I wear glasses), and some really good memories, he’s not sure when to trust my memory over his own because I’m either spot on or really really wrong.  His memory, on the other hand, is either right or slightly off.

Part II.

http://dreamersight.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/imaginal-healing-of-an-eye-problem/

Just look at the example Nancy recently posted about the woman who cured herself of melanoma of the eye by using positive imagery when thinking of ‘cleaning’ her eye.  The Eyebody method by Peter Grunwald seems to be based on using imagery on one body part, which will then affect another.  Dr. Bates also talked about optimums and pessimums.  These all point to one thing – we need to be nice to our bodies.  It seems positive mental imagery is one way to accomplish that.

Part III

http://www.effortlessvision.com/forum1/viewtopic.php?t=417

Read about why Robert of Outlook Insight observes that a lot of people fail – because they’ve decided that they want to see their way.  He writes about how the healing process can be held up because of people’s inability to face their emotions, unwillingness to change themselves, and need for perceived control.  Positive thinking and positive imagery may be a way to overcome these hurdles.

ch. 28 Teach!

Ch. 28

The story of Emily is really inspiring.  The message is to teach others!  Use what you know that improved your eyesight to improve the eyesight of others.

The most important thing to remember when teaching other people is that they will only be interested if they experience for themselves the truths of perfect and imperfect sight.  If, on the other hand, you just talk to them about how the Bates method works and what it does they will look at you like you’re crazy and be uninterested.  Dr. Bates points this out in several magazine articles.  This is why every magazine starts with a ‘Demonstrate’ card.  Using a quick demonstration, it is easy for someone to experience that strain ruins the sight and rest improves it.  A theoretical discussion is pointless, because everyone ‘knows’ that eyesight doesn’t improve, you end up talking to a brick wall.

I always start with a palming demonstration.  Have them look at a nice picture or scenery (without glasses).  Then show them how to palm and have them remember the picture or any other pleasant thought for 5-20 minutes.  After this time have them look again and the eyesight is usually better.  Ask them, what made it better?  If they don’t come up with the answer themselves, lead them to the answer that resting their eyes improved it.  Then teach them to stare and show that it is a strain and lowers the sight.  Then do another palming to improve it again. Emphasize again that rest improves the vision and straining, especially staring lowers it.  This can be followed by some simple demonstrations of shifting, which is the opposite of the stare.  You can also procede with central fixation, memory or imagination, anything you personally feel able to teach to them that you have benefitted from.

Other important things to cover:
- any improvement is temporary unless that rested state is practiced until it becomes habitual.
- people with normal vision don’t have it all the time.  They can probably remember times when they have better or worse vision depending on how tired or stressed they are.  This is completely natural!  For people improving their eyesight, the same thing happens: they can therefore expect days when their eyes without glasses are better or worse.  It is the overall trend that gets better over time.  So be sure to emphasize that some days will seem worse and some days better.  That’s why it’s important to keep records of past Snellen chart readings so you can see how they change over the weeks (not just day to day).
- emphasize that no amount of effort or concentration will improve their sight.  If they are practicing a method that ends up lowering the sight, they should stop because they are straining, and ask for help!

remember -  demonstrate!  people learn best from their own experiences.

CH. 26 and 27

Methods that have failed to improve sight: I think the most obvious point to make is one that Dr. Bate made in an earlier chapter.  The ‘solution’ our society has for defective sight is glasses, but this doesn’t cure it, it makes it worse!  It is really surpising that more people don’t stumble on this conclusion themselves.  When I was in primary school I thought about becoming an eye doctor.  But when I thought about it, I realized that they didn’t know anything about improving eyesight.  I was always told that the eye had been pulled out of shape and I used to dream about finding a way to reshape it correctly.  But as I grew older and the prevailing opinion that this wasn’t possible was impressed upon me, I lost any aspiration to find a solution and just accepted it as the way things were.  Funny how things work out in the end.

Bates’s method that restores perfect vision:  I think the only downfall of the method is its pure simplicity.  People try to make it more complicated than it is and then end up misunderstanding it.  No one will believe that simply looking at a familiar object as a point of fixation is a relaxation and that this trains the eye/brain to use relaxation to see all objects successfully.  The end of the chapter gives clear instructions for using the method in the classroom.  Again, he emphasizes the activity of reading from the Snellen chart daily.

Why is the Snellen chart so vital for success with the Bates method?  Although from the beginning I realized the importance of practicing with it every day, it is only recently that I appreciate why it is the Snellen chart and nothing else that is ideal for practicing central fixation and shifting.

For one, black letters on a white background is the simplest combination of colors.  Black will look black no matter what the lighting conditions are.  Second, letters and numbers are the simlest forms that we can easily recognize and name.  Made up of straight and curved lines, there are 35 possible combinations (letters A to Z plus numbers 1 to 9).  Geometric shapes would be ok, but how much variations can you get besides square, circle, and triangle before you either don’t have a name for it or it just gets too complicated that it isn’t a familiar shape? I often think about different forms of charts using images or outlines of objects (like flowers, leaves, animals, etc), but in the end, the shapes get too complicated or intricate, whereas a letter is so simple and distinguishable.  What would be the alternative?  If we wanted to use a familiar object as a point of fixation for practice, it could be, for example, a photograph.  You can successfully practice central fixation on the features in the picture.  However, you can recognize a fence without centralizing on the grain of the wood, or a flower without distinguishing the petals.  This means that your feedback for how successful your practice has been is subjective.  You can still recognize the fence whether your visual accuity is much higher or lower than normal.  Letters on the other hand, require a greater amount of central fixation to distinguish from one another.  By looking at letters of different sizes, the effect of successful central fixation practice is immediate and obvious because the features of the letters either can or cannot be distinguished depending on how large the letter is.  You know the practice has been beneficial when a smaller letter becomes darker and more clear than it was at the start of practice.

Of course, practicing on every day objects all day long is vital for ultimate success with the method!  However, the basis for learning the finist shifting and smallest area of central fixation is most practically done with the Snellen chart.

Ch. XXIV and XXV Home and Correspondence Treatment

I’ll review home treatment and correspondence treatment together, because the first leads quite naturally into the other.

As an overview, consider that Dr. Bates splits people into two groups:  1.  Those who never wore glasses and 2.  Those who have worn glasses.   These can be split into two further groups, those who can quickly cure themselves, and those who have an obstinate case that will need the help of a teacher.  I’ll summarize Bates’s opinion on each group.

Overall, I think his main point is that it is possible to improve the sight if a few simple directions are followed.  The easiest way to tell if you need a teacher or not is to read Dr. Bates’s article at the beginning of his book ‘The Fundamental Principle’.  If you can manage to help yourself with this method, then keep on going!  If you fail, get a teacher!  Or, if you simply don’t think you will make time to study his writing and use your own creativity for practicing, that will be another indicator that a teacher will be able to help you much faster than you will help yourself.

For those who have never worn glasses:
He recommends reading the Snellen chart twice per day.  This is enough to improve their sight because it allows them to notice what they do to make their sight imperfect (which they can stop), and what they do which improves the sight (which they naturally continue to do all day).  People who haven’t worn glasses will have more of a tendency to notice what they change to improve their sight and to actually do it.

People who have worn glasses, on the other hand, are usd to chronically straining to fit their eyes to the glasses, and are less likely to be so responsive.
For those who have worn glasses, bad habits are deeply ingrained in the brain, and active relaxation methods should be practiced.  These are described in chapters 7 to 25, and once those have been read, his magazine articles should be read, 1 every day.  Bates says they will have to devote considerable time to the treatment.  ‘Children and adults who have worn glasses will have to devote an hour or longer every day to practice with the test card and the balance of their time to practice on other objects.’  What does this mean?  He has described many methods for practicing central fixation, shifting, memory, and imagination with the test card.  It shouldn’t be boring!  30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening should be a manageable goal for practicing with the test card.  What does it mean to practice on other objects?  With this he is saying that the entire day, no matter what you are looking at, use central fixation to see it, shift to another object, rest your eyes when you can and remember the last object seen perfectly, or imagine something that can be imagined perfectly.  These are simple things that can be done the entire day while doing all the activities you have to do – working, learning, sports, shopping, cleaning…

Then there is the question of glasses, which he obviously.  However, in other articles he has written: ‘As a general rule it is best for the patient to discard glasses. In some cases of extreme myopia, where going without glasses entails too great a hardship, good results have been obtained by gradually reducing the strength of the glasses worn as the vision improves, but the treatment is then prolonged.’ Dr. Bates concedes that weaker glasses, or glasses worn only when absolutely necessary, can be tolerated for the first part of treatment, as that is better than discarding the entire method.  However, once the eyesight improves to a certain degree that the perrson is confident the method is working, glasses should be discarded.  There is a point, and I’m currently experiencing this, when reduced glasses don’t give better visual accuity, most activities can be done without them, and they are worn only because the eyes are addicted to them and depend on them for the confidence of seeing.  This is the point when they should and can be safely discarded in order that further improvement can be made.

The glasses issue shouldn’t get so much attention though!  It is far more important that I discuss the actual practice of the Bates method.  So before I move on to discuss obstinate cases that need a teacher, I will interject a few observations I’ve made.  First, Dr. Bates clearly says that everyone who wishes to improve their sight can do so most easily by practicing daily with a Snellen test card.  For people who have worn glasses, they will need to practice longer, as well as consciously practicing better vision habits the whole day.  Why don’t we see more success stories out there?  For the simple reason that it is quite rare for anyone to actually bother practicing so much.  For the most part I stopped commenting on the eyesight forums because it is in general just full of people complaining about how they can’t get better, and when you ask what they are doing, the answer is usually struggling without glasses and practicing maybe 5 minutes per day.  I have observed in my own experience that what he writes is true.  I have improved the most when I have practiced with the Snellen chart twice per day.  I got to a peak where I could see 10/20 without glasses.  Then after my wedding I got really busy with my PhD and just stopped practicing with the Snellen chart so consistently.  I practice on every day objects and now and then I practiced with the chart, but I wasn’t consistent.  This caused a relapse although I was wearing my glasses less than ever before!   Last week I finally got out the chart again and discovered that I had slipped to 20/100, 10/50!  Since then I started reading it every day again, and after only 1 week I’m now back to 8/20, 20/50.  Although I knew before that practicing with the card was the reason my eyes were getting better, now I realize it is essential for me to continue with the chart until I have perfect sight.  What Helena wrote on her blog last week was spot on – when you change to a better habit, and you see that it does you good, that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to continue with that better habit.  I often slip back into bad habits, especially when I get stressed out with my phd.

Anyway…

If you try and try and nothing works, get a teacher.  This is what Dr. Bates calls an obstinate case.  Dr. Bates has suggested the qualifications for a teacher – that they have used the methods to improve their own sight.  Ask potential teachers in depth what methods they have been able to use themselves to advantage.  Many good teachers offer correspondence treatment.  In the chapter on correspondendence treatment, Dr. Bates mentions that although it is slower than personal lessons, it still works.  Now, with the advent of email, digital photos and videaos, correspondence treatment is easier and more accessible than ever.  Further, many teachers travel around and offer lessons where they go.  It may be appropriate to travel to meet them and then follow up with correspondence treatment.

Ch. XXIII Floaters

It works!!  (the advice given by Dr. Bates to get rid of floaters)

I misunderstood this chapter the first time I read it.  I had understood that Dr. Bates was asserting that the floating specks weren’t there.  Now I realize that what he is writing is that if the eye is relaxed and able to make small shifts, the specks will disappear (or cease to move).  I think it is very important that he seems to equate the specks not moving with them not being seen in light of the article I referenced last week – in short, the brain is designed to filter out any specks or structureal parts of the eye from what we perceive as seeing, because it doesn’t move relative to our eye. I experience floating specs (and I think they might have come in one eye because of some laser experiments I did and I think I flashed myself on accident).  While reading this chapter, my vision in my right eye cleared up considerably.  While I was writing the first part of this post, thinking of these floating specs, I noticed them. How annoying!  However, I did as he said, I shifted on one of the letters.  Fist looking at the top, then the bottom.  Just like magic, the specs disappeared   I’ve repeated it a dozen times now, and it really works, small shifts and clear eyesight make floating specks disappear.

The next day after I wrote the above part, I woke up in the morning and my room was bright with sunlight, and myceiling was bright white.  As usual, I could see the annoying floaters chasing around.  I thought to myself, surely I can’t get rid of them under these conditions!  However, I made very small shifts on the ceiling as if I were imagining a small letter.  WOW!  All floaters disappeared   With some practice I was able to turn my head from one side of the room to the other without seeing any floaters chasing after the image.   I think this has important implications on the long swing – it can be done with strain, or it can be done without.  If the eye is makingn unconscious small shifts as the head turns (and the eyes turn with the head), then the long swing is successful.  Of course, you can’t tell your eye to make unconscious small shifts, but you can consciously observe oppositional movement, which seems to accomplish the same thing.

Editor’s Note:   When Mr. Hapgood was in Berlin he was astonished to see that the authorities had taken glasses off the school children. An American is pioneer in the movement.

Thirty years ago, not knowing any better and being guided by the practice of other eye doctors, I recommended patients with imperfect sight to throw away their eyes and see with their glasses. Since that time I have made some valuable discoveries which have enabled me to cure people without glasses. The slogan now is: “Throw away your glasses and see with your eyes.”

We are rapidly becoming a four-eyed nation. The enthusiasm of the eye doctors is putting glasses on many people who do not need them. Just as soon as we go to the doctor and complain about our eyes or some nervous trouble with our minds and our heads, the stomach or something else, the doctor prescribes glasses. Fifty years ago the number of persons wearing glasses was very much less than it is now. Human nature is such that when one person gets glasses we believe everybody else should do as we do and wear glasses. When prominent people set the fashion the rank and file feel that they must do the same. It is a matter of record in this country with a population of one hundred and ten million or more, that all persons over forty years of age, according to the old theories, should wear glasses.

Some eye specialists have gone so far as to say that all children attending school should wear glasses either to relieve imperfect sight or to prevent their eyes from failing. This matter was considered by the Board of Education of the City of New York in 1912 and much pressure was brought to bear to have it done. I was the only physician that went before the Board of Education and recommended the method of treatment which had cured and prevented imperfect sight in school children.

The craze for glasses has even included nursing babies. It is all wrong, and the evidence has been accumulating through the years that imperfect sight is curable without glasses. Most of us should have an interest in the welfare of every child and get busy and investigate the facts. The medical profession has neglected its duty. They have done noble work in the study and prevention of yellow fever and other conditions, but when it comes to the eyes the doctors can only recommend glasses. My investigations have demonstrated many facts of great practical importance.

In the first place all children under twelve years of age with imperfect sight can be cured without glasses. This is a challenge. If there is one child who cannot be cured by my treatment I am wrong about the whole thing. There is no exception and when a proposition has no exception we call it a truth.

They can be cured not only by me but by their parents, by their teachers, by anybody who has normal sight, but they cannot be cured by people who have imperfect sight. The teachers in the public schools have succeeded by practicing my suggestions with the children, reading the Snellen test card with each eye as well as they can every day, devoting in most cases only a few minutes daily. Those children whose sight is already normal only need to read with normal sight, one minute or less, every day to prevent eye-strain and imperfect sight.

One day I visited a classroom and I said to the teacher: “Can you pick out the children who have imperfect sight?” She selected a number of children that she thought had imperfect sight. In every case her selection was made because of the way the children used their eyes. Some of them squinted, some of them strained in other ways.

I tested the sight of these children and found it imperfect. Then I suggested to the teacher that she ask the children to use their eyes without strain, without making any efforts to see. You will find how well they can see when they use their eyes easily, without effort.

Much to her surprise they all read the card with normal vision. Some of these children were wearing glasses. When they removed their glasses at first their sight was imperfect but after resting their eyes by closing them for five minutes or longer their vision became very much improved. In one classroom the teacher found that all her children had imperfect sight; but by showing them how to rest their eyes, by avoiding the strain, and by closing them, the vision of all of them was improved and all obtained perfect sight except one. I learned that this one also obtained perfect sight a few weeks later. It is impossible to cure those children while they are wearing glasses.

In all my enthusiasm I felt that it was not proper for me to interfere with children who were under the care of a physician while wearing the glasses he prescribed. Of course I could not be blamed if the children lost their glasses and got well without them.

It should be emphasized that teachers wearing glasses have a larger percentage of pupils with imperfect sight than have the teachers whose sight is normal and who do not wear glasses. Why is this? The facts are that children, being naturally great imitators, not only consciously or unconsciously practice the strained look of the eyes of the teachers with imperfect sight, but the strain of all the nerves of the body is imitated by the children. For the benefit of the school children no teacher wearing glasses or who has imperfect sight should have charge of children in any public or private school.

Parents wearing glasses are under a nervous strain almost continuously. It can be demonstrated in all cases that the children’s eyes tend to strain and that the sight becomes imperfect because most children, if not all, imitate consciously or unconsciously the nervous strain of their parents. The future of our country is in the hands of the children and I believe that we should all make any sacrifice which can be made for their welfare.

Throw away your glasses, become cured. It was demonstrated that all persons I tested wearing glasses were curable without glasses. I have demonstrated this fact, that the eyes of all near-sighted persons become normal while looking at a distant blank wall without trying to see. The same is true in all other cases, in far-sightedness, in astigmatism, no exceptions.

It can always be demonstrated that when the normal eye with normal sight makes an effort to see at the distance the eye becomes near-sighted; again, no exceptions. When the normal eye strains to see at the near point the eye tends to become and does become less near-sighted and produces a measure of far-sightedness.

In astigmatism the strain can always be demonstrated. One can by will produce in the normal eye any kind of imperfect sight by the necessary strain. The normal eye is always at rest and nothing is done in order to see. If anything is done it is always wrong and always produces imperfect sight. This suggests treatment and prevention. Treatment can only succeed when perfect rest is obtained.

And what shall we say of the physicians, the oculists, the opticians and all persons engaged in the work of prescribing glasses? Every physician wearing glasses, like every child, every man, every woman, has to strain to make his eyes fit the glasses. In every case this fact can be demonstrated. Surely the leaders in this movement for the benefit of the eyes of the school children can be or ought to be the medical profession, and I feel that we are lax in our duty when we neglect to study these methods and practice these methods which cure imperfect sight without the aid of glasses.

Imperfect sight is usually contagious. Actors on the stage do not feel the need of glasses. Fancy some operatic star going through a performance wearing strong glasses. The strain would spoil the music.

Many people are afraid of the light. They protect their eyes with dark glasses when they go to the seashore, they use umbrellas, sunshades. In tropical countries special kinds of hats are popular, hats which are supposed to prevent the bad effects of the sun.

Bookkeepers and people who work by artificial light wear contrivances of all kinds to shade their eyes from the artificial light. Is sunlight injurious? It is not. Of course after remaining in a dark room and suddenly going out into the bright sunlight one feels the change, and if one is at all nervous the effect of the light on the eyes is magnified, exaggerated. Some people believe it injures the eyes to read in the bright sunlight with the sun shining on the page. They complain that the light dazzles their eyes.

I know a farmer who for fifteen years had never been able to do a stroke of work out in the sun. He complained that the light blinded him and so he remained in a dark room most of the time and was not as happy as he might have been. He had a large family and in their sympathy they believed as he did and all the time cautioned him to protect his eyes. If someone opened the door suddenly and let in the daylight there was a great rush to close the door and protect the gentleman from the light.

He came to me with his eyes well wrapped up and protected from any light striking his eyes. I darkened the room and had him look down, and when he looked far down I lifted the upper lid and focused a strong light on the white part of his eye, first the artificial light and then the strong light of the sun.

The effect was miraculous. He smiled and walked around the room, looked out the window, put on his hat and walked down the street and came back feeling first rate. Ever afterwards he enjoyed the light instead of suffering from it. All he needed was a little encouragement. Focusing the strong light in his eyes with the aid of the burning glass and doing it right caused him no pain or discomfort whatever.

I know a white man who lives in Borneo, an island in the tropics. This man goes around without a hat. He told me that the natives did not wear hats and had no discomfort from the sun and what was good enough for the natives was good enough for him, and it certainly worked. He has lived there forty years or more and the sun does not do him any harm. Did he ever suffer sunstroke? No. Did anybody else ever suffer sunstroke in Borneo? There is no record. Out in the Canadian northwest in the summer time the sun is very strong and the crops mature in a few months. They raise fine wheat there. Do you hear of anybody being sunstruck working in the wheat fields?

In New York City the papers publish from time to time during the hot weather cases of sunstroke. I have been called to attend such cases. Quite a number of people living in tenement houses have been ill during the very hot weather and I am quite sure that many years ago I believed that I was treating cases of sunstroke. It is very queer but many of these cases never saw the sun and most of them had a breath that we in the days of prohibition might envy.

I do not believe any baseball player or any tennis player in spite of his strenuous exercise on bright sunshiny days has ever suffered from any bad effect of the sun. Most tennis players do not ever wear a cap to protect their eyes from the sun and you have to have good eyesight to play a good game of tennis. When they serve the ball the light of the sun often shines directly into their eyes and the experts are able to drive the ball quite accurately in spite of the sun.

Many years ago I listened to the older and the wiser men who treat the eye and they complained that something ought to be done to prevent children playing out in the sun without any hats on. We are more liberal now and treat tuberculosis in children by exposing not only the head and eyes but their whole bodies naked to the sun and I understand it is a very successful treatment. Miners who seldom see the sun always have disease of their eyes. All people who wear dark glasses and avoid the bright sunlight always have trouble with their eyes.

I had a patient once who spent two years in a hospital here in New York many years ago, occupied a dark room and had her eyes bandaged with a black cloth so that not a ray of light could possibly enter her eyes, and at the end of her treatment left the hospital worse than she was before. I cured her by having her practice looking at the sun. At first when she did it she was temporarily blinded. She said that she had no perception of light whatever, but in a few hours she recovered and her eyes felt better.

I undertook to caution her by suggesting that she do it gradually not to get too much of the sun at once, to wait until she became more accustomed to it; but she paid no attention to what I said and went ahead and blinded her eyes again and kept it up every day, with very rapid improvement in her sight, until it was not more than a week or so before she could look straight at the sun without suffering any inconvenience whatsoever. Her vision which had been one-tenth of the normal with glasses became normal without glasses after the sun treatment.

Some scientists in Boston experimented on the eyes of rabbits. They focused the strong light of the sun directly into the eyes and then examined the retina with a microscope and much to their surprise found nothing wrong. They tried strong electric arc lights and found that the retina was not injured. They used every known light on the eyes of these animals and in no case was the light ever an injury.

I called on a friend of mine who had an Alpine lamp which he was using for treating different diseases. He said that one should wear a dark glass to protect the eyes from this light because it was very injurious to the eyes. Right away I had him turn it on full force and I looked at the strong light of the lamp.

“What did you do that for?” he asked.

“To see if it would make me blind,” I answered.

“Well how do you feel now?” he asked after a few minutes.

“All right,” I answered.

“Is your sight all right?”

“It certainly is,” I replied.

This was some years ago and I am still able to see.

About ten years ago the Scientific American published a series of articles on the effect of light on the eyes and published that some of the rays were injurious. I tested the facts and found that the man who had written the article had neglected to report the exceptions.

Recently an acquaintance of mine told me that he had seen in the last three months seventy-four cases of disease of the eyes from exposure to strong light from the electric arc. I told the gentleman that he had had an unusual experience, but in my heart I knew he was a liar.

CONCENTRATION

For many years it had been drummed into my mind by my teachers when I first went to school and later by my professors in college, that in order to accomplish things and to make a success of life, one should practice concentration. Recently in New York I received an advertisement from a man who delivers popular lectures, an invitation to attend the lecture with the title “Concentration the Key-note to Success.” About the same time one of my patients suffered very much from imperfect sight. The patient bought a book of 500 pages on concentration. He bought the book to improve his memory and sight.

For many years from time to time patients from the faculties of Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and other colleges come to me for treatment of their eyes. They all say that not only are they unable to use their eyes for any length of time but that they are also ill in a great many other ways, physically, mentally, with their nerves all shot to pieces. They complain that they have lost the power to concentrate.

By investigating the facts I find that invariably they have been teaching concentration. It does me a great deal of good personally to get square with them because these are the people who cause so much imperfect sight. It can be shown that all persons with imperfect sight are trying to concentrate. I have repeatedly published and described the evidence which proves conclusively that concentration of the eyes is impossible.

Trying to do the impossible is a strain, an awful strain and the worst strain that the eyes can experience. So many people have a theory that concentration is a help and if we could all concentrate we would all be much better off. The trouble is that concentration is a theory and not fact. If you try to concentrate your mind on a part of a large letter of the Snellen test card at ten feet or twenty feet it can be demonstrated that the effort fails and the vision becomes imperfect.

The same is true of the memory and of the imagination. The dictionary says concentration is an effort to keep your mind fixed on a point. I have tested a great many people and not one of them was ever able to accomplish it for any length of time, and the result is always bad with the eyes, with the memory, with the imagination, with the nerves of the body generally. If the professors of concentration were wise they would avoid trying to practice it. It is only in that way that they can avoid trouble.

TREATMENT

If you have imperfect sight and desire to obtain normal vision without glasses, I suggest that you keep in mind a few facts. In the first place the normal eye does not have normal sight all the time, so if you have relapses in the beginning do not be discouraged. First test your sight with a Snellen test card with each eye at twenty feet, then close your eyes and rest them. Cover them with one or both hands in such a way as to shut out all the light and do this for at least an hour, then open your eyes for a moment and again test your sight with both eyes at the same time.

Your vision should be temporarily improved if you have rested your eyes. If you vision is not improved it means that you have been remembering or imagining things imperfectly and under a strain. With the eyes closed and covered at rest, with your mind at rest, you should not see anything at all, it should be all black. If you see colors, red, green, blue, or flashes of light, you are not resting your eyes but you are straining them.

Some people when they close their eyes let their minds drift and think of things which are pleasant to remember, things which come into their minds without their volition and which are remembered quickly, easily and perfectly. Some patients have great difficulty in improving their sight by closing their eyes and trying to rest them. If you fail, get someone with perfect sight to demonstrate that resting the eyes is a help and who can show you how to do it.

Persons with normal eyes when they have normal sight suffer no pain, discomfort, headaches or fatigue. When a person with imperfect sight closes the eyes and rests them successfully the eye becomes normal for the time being. When such a person looks at the distance and remembers some letter, some color or some object perfectly the eyes are normal and the vision is perfect. This is a very remarkable fact, it has been tested in thousands of cases and one can always demonstrate that it is true.

One of the quickest and most satisfactory ways of improving the sight is a perfect imagination. The normal eye at twenty feet imagines it sees a small letter of the same size as it does at one foot. The eye with imperfect sight on the contrary usually sees a letter at twenty feet larger than it really is.

The normal eye imagines the white of a Snellen test card at twenty feet, ten feet, as white as it is at one foot. The eye with imperfect sight sees the whiteness of the card less white or a shade of gray.

The white centers of the letters are imagined by the normal eye to be whiter than other parts of the card, while the eye with imperfect sight imagines the white centers of the letters to be less white than the margin of the card. Persons with imperfect sight have been cured very quickly by demonstrating these facts to them and encouraging them to imagine the letters in the same way as the normal eye imagines them.

When reading small print in a newspaper or in a book the normal eye is able to imagine the white spaces between the lines whiter than they really are. The whiter the spaces are imagined the blacker the letters appear and the more distinct do they become.

Persons with imperfect sight do not imagine the white spaces between the lines of fine print that they are endeavoring to read, to be as white as the margin of the page. Persons with imperfect sight do not become able to read fine print until they become able to imagine the white spaces between the lines of letters to be whiter than they really are.

When people with normal vision have normal sight they are always able to see one letter best or one part of a letter better than all the rest. It is impossible to see a whole letter at one time perfectly. One has to imagine different parts best. Persons with imperfect sight, when they regard a line of letters that they do not read, discover that they do not see best one part of the line of letters, but rather do they see most of the line a pale gray with no separation between the letters.

By Central Fixation is meant the ability to see best where you are looking. When one sees a small letter clearly or perfectly it can be demonstrated that while the whole letter is seen at one time, one sees or imagines one part best at a time. The normal eye when it has normal vision is seeing an illusion and sees one letter best of a line or one part of one letter best at a time.

We do not see illusions, they are imagined. Central fixation is a truth to which there are no exceptions and yet it is all imagination. The more perfect the imagination, the more perfect the sight, the more perfect is central fixation.

It is interesting to realize that the truth about vision in all its manifestations, does not obey the laws of physiology, the laws of optics, the laws of mathematics, and to try to explain in some plausible way, why or how all these things are so, is a waste of time, because I do not believe anybody can explain the various manifestations of the imagination.

Most people have an imagination that is good enough to cure them if they would only use it. What we see is only what we think we see or what we imagine we see. When we imagine correctly we see correctly, when we imagine imperfectly we see imperfect. People with imperfect sight have difficulty in imagining that they see perfectly at twenty feet the same letter that they do at one foot or less.

It can be demonstrated that when one remembers a letter perfectly one cannot at the same time remember some other letter imperfectly. The same is true of the imagination and of the vision. This fact is of the greatest importance in the treatment of imperfect sight without glasses. If one can remember perfectly a mental picture of some letter at all times, in all places, the imagination and vision for all letters regarded are also perfect.

One can improve the memory by alternately remembering a letter with the eyes closed for part of a minute or longer and then opening the eyes and remembering the same letter for a fraction of a second. Unfortunately it is true that many people with imperfect sight are unable to remember or imagine mental pictures perfectly. The treatment of these cases is complicated.

One patient when he looked at a white pillow saw it without any difficulty. He thought he saw it all at once. When he closed his eyes he could not remember a mental picture of the pillow.

With his eyes open I called his attention to the fact that he did not see the whole pillow equally white at the same time but that his eyes shifted from one corner that he saw best to another corner or to another part of the pillow and that he successively imagined one small part of the pillow best. With his eyes open he could not see two corners of the pillow best at the same time. He had to see it by central fixation, one part best, in order to see it perfectly. I suggested that when he closed his eyes he remember the pillow in the same way, one corner at a time or one small area best at a time.

He immediately for the first time in his life obtained a mental picture of the pillow. Afterwards he became able to remember or imagine a mental picture of the pillow with his eyes closed by practicing the same methods. He became able to imagine mental pictures of one letter at a time. Always he found that he could not remember the whole letter at once. The strain was evident and made it impossible. By alternately remembering a mental picture of a letter with his eyes closed and remembering the same picture with his eyes open for a short fraction of a second he became able to remember the mental picture of a letter when looking at a blank wall where there was nothing to see, just as well as he could with his eyes closed.

It required many hours of practice before he could remember the letter perfectly when looking anywhere near the Snellen test card, because he could not remember one letter perfectly and imagine one letter on the Snellen test card imperfectly without losing the mental picture. In other words he could not imagine one thing perfectly and something else imperfectly at the same time.

After a patient has become able under favorable conditions to imagine mental pictures as well with the eyes open as with the eyes closed, his cure can be obtained in a reasonable length of time. One patient, for example, could not see the largest letter on the Snellen test card at more than three feet but by practicing the memory of the mental picture of a letter, alternately with his eyes closed and with his eyes open, he was permanently cured in a few weeks.

In the beginning even with the strong glasses the vision that he obtained was one-tenth of the normal, but with the help of the mental pictures he became able to read without glasses at twenty feet a line marked ten on the Snellen test card. School children who have never worn glasses, under twelve years of age, can easily be cured by their teachers in two weeks or less.

It is very important that all patients who desire to be cured of imperfect sight should discard their glasses and never put them on again for any emergencies. It is not well to use opera glasses. Going without glasses has at least one benefit: it acts as an incentive to the patient to practice the right methods in order to obtain all the sight that seems possible.

PREVENTION OF MYOPIA IN SCHOOL CHILDREN

About ten years ago I introduced my method for the prevention of myopia in school children in a number of the schools in the City of New York. In one year I studied the records of twenty thousand children who had been tested before and after the treatment. To prove a negative proposition, to prove that something does not occur because something else is done, is a difficult or impossible proposition. When I recommended my treatment for the school children I claimed that every child who used the method properly would see better and that no matter how poor the sight might be or how long the sight had been imperfect the vision would be improved always.

If there were one exception I made the statement that my method was only a working hypothesis at best or a theory, and that I was wrong about everything I said. Since all the children who used the method had their sight improved it is evident that imperfect sight from myopia was prevented in those children at that time.

I have published from time to time reports on results of my method for the prevention of myopia in school children. These reports are on file in the New York Academy of Medicine and can be consulted by anybody.

In 1912 I read a paper on this subject before the New York County Medical Association in which I made the statement that every child with normal eyes and normal sight who strains to see at the distance becomes temporarily or more continuously near-sighted. There are no exceptions.

If one competent ophthalmologist can prove that I am wrong about one case, I am wrong about all the statements I have made about myopia. This experiment can be performed in the doctor’s office or at his clinic and the facts determined with the aid of a retinoscope, an instrument used for measuring the amount of near-sightedness which may be present in the eye.

There were present at this meeting a large number of prominent eye doctors of the City of New York. They knew that I was going to make this statement and issue this challenge because I sent a copy of my paper to these gentlemen two weeks before I read the paper. It would have been very easy for any of them to have tested the matter and determined whether I was right or wrong, but when the Chairman of the Society called on them to discuss my paper they declined to say anything about it or to publicly deny it.

I have the records of many persons who threw away their glasses and now have perfect sight with normal eyes.

They did it.

Everybody can do it.

You can do it.

Book club

This weeek, I’m covering three chapters for the book club.  Although the chapter titles seem very specific, I think they are very useful for everyone to read, no matter their error of refraction.

Ch. XX.  Presbiopia:  if you haven’t read this chapter, it’s worth it – you get to read Dr. Bates account of how he cured his own eyes of presbyopia.  I find reading about presbyopia cures often provides much help in using memory and imagination to aid eyesight.

Ch XXI.  SQUINT AND AMBLYOPIA: THEIR CAUSE

I wonder if it’s possible that I don’t have squint (cross eyes) but that I have amblyopia.  Is it possible to have amblopia without squint?  Often one eye is better than the other.  In fact, recently, I almost always have something at least close to satisfactory vision or better, but usually in only one eye, and that I can change quite often!

Ch. XXII.  SQUINT AND AMBLYOPIA: THEIR CURE

Dr. Bates seems to recommend two things:  learn to produce different types of squint, and learn central fixation with each eye separately.  On the rare occasion that I have noticed my eyes not converging on the same point, I have been able to get rid of squint by simply making it worse.  Just deomonstrating this seems to keep the problem away.  In the magazines, Dr. Bates frequently recommended the long swing as well as a means to help squint and amblyopia.

Practice shifting and central fixation with each eye separately:  I found it interesting that in his examples the other eye is covered with an opaque glass during treatment and central fixation practice.  This is a great idea, because when I practice and cover my eye with my hand, it is distracting because that eye sees much darker than the other one.  Maybe I could use an opaque folder cover that is clear plastic, but textured so I can’t see through it, and use that to cover each eye separately to practice central fixation alternately with each eye.

When I started the method, I rarely read chapters of his book or magazine articles that were for anything other than myopia and describing his methods directly.  After a  while, though, I realized this was a mistake, as is obvious in this chapter.  This chapter has more examples of how to practice central fixation than in any other chapter I’ve read.  It’s one thing to read an article about central fixation, but often more useful to read an example of how it’s done in practice.