Foxy,
You're referring to the Bates Method. Same thing I've been studying.
For others reading this, it is not a contemporary system of exercises to make the eye see better. It originated 100 years ago and was developed by a highly respected and prominent scientist named William H. Bates whom many eye doctors of his time looked up to and respected. He also founded adrenaline. This system, instead, focuses on the habits and usage of the eyes, which can be used 24/7/365, and has history leading back to a major scandal in the beginning of how the optometry schools came about.
Bates received his degree from Cornell University then taught at Columbia University and had his own research lab there. He discovered a way to reverse eyesight and succeeded on thousands of New York school-age children and tried it on adults, including clients of other eye doctors who had said they were myopic, and succeeded in restoring their eyesight to 20/20 or better. The eye doctors didn't want to believe this, because it would take a lot of profit away from them by no longer having people rely on glasses.
Bates also claimed to have proven a great German scientist named
Hermann von Helmholtz wrong regarding Helmholtz's theory on accommodation. Although Wikipedia says "His theory of accommodation went unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century" which means 1990, this is a FALSE statement because Bates challenged this theory way back in the 1910s, and it shows in published text by Bates that I've read, which explicitly states how he proved the theory wrong after two years of trying to prove Helmholtz
right but could not do it, before finding the error, and the Board of Optometrists refused to listen to him and expelled him from his teaching position. Helmholtz had made many great discoveries including the principle of conservation of energy, so people did not challenge his teachings for nearly two hundred years.
Extracted from "Dr Bates Lecture" at
Better Eyesight Magazine - April 1923 - www.Central-Fixation.com:
"...as a result he discovered that the accommodation of the eye is not brought about by a change in the shape of the lens, but by the lengthening and shortening of the eyeball itself, as the bellows of a camera.
When he explained and illustrated this to his doctor friends, it disturbed them greatly. The surgeon who had charge of the laboratory came to him and said: "Do you know that you have proven that Helmholtz is wrong and furthermore if you wish to be accepted by scientific men you will have to show how or why he blundered?" This was quite a proposition, but Dr. Bates continued his experiments and for two years tried to prove that Helmholtz was right, but failed, and finally discovered how Helmholtz blundered; which Doctor Bates has illustrated in his book. As a reward for this, he was expelled from the University."
Most people do not know this, including the eye doctors. Most eye doctors wouldn't want to know nor believe this, because billions (if not trillions) of dollars in revenue are earned every year by making people depend on glasses.
Why then would the majority of eye doctors ever want to tell, assuming they all find out that decrimental eyesight can be reversed naturally? And if a minority of eye doctors stands up, they will be challenged and quickly subdued by the majority who have been traditionally taught theories that have gone unchallenged by everyone for over a hundred years. But that's the harsh reality in a world where business is mostly about making money. Most people will tell you BULLSHIT if you tried to explain why deteoriating eyesight can be reversed because they do not understand what happened in history or how wrong theories came into place and weren't challenged for generations, and then bury the evidence whenever it came up - exactly what happened during Copernicus' time. But here we have a modern Copernicus scenario with this.
According to Bates thinking (based on his scientific findings), if you get LASIK, you'd still have the real underlying strain because the eye doctor will only correct your acuity (that's it!), and the underlying strain will still cause your eyesight to deteoriate anyway, plus you will be at increased risk for eye diseases and you won't be able to retain 20/20 eyesight for the rest of your life without confusing the brain. The problem with getting LASIK is that there is no turning back once you have it, because there will no longer be any way to reverse the underlying tension without also reversing the acuity of your eyes. Both were intended by nature to co-balance with each other, and corneal surgery kills the proportion already established. Have you ever noticed that when you get sick, your eyesight worsens? Have you ever noticed that when you're feeling well, your eyesight is better? When you're relaxed after working out, your eyesight is improved.
If the real cause is actually tension of the extrinsic eyeball muscles, and Bates is correct that this tension needs to be alleviated by using proper eye habits and other methods to relax the eyes, then eyesight can be naturally reversed to better than 20/20. Relieving this tension would also greatly alleviate mental strain, which also has to do with memory. Relaxed people are known to have better memory recall capabilities than non-relaxed people. Bates also discovered that the ability to learn is relative to how well you see, which comes as no big surprise to me. Like I said before, "The brain recognizes, records, and recalls sharp images much quicker than blurry images."
Why do some people walk into a room and not notice details, while other people do? Some people are able to remember color much more vividly than others. One reason: how interested they are in something. Another reason: how much effort they must put into observing something. Most people don't think of the second reason. But the second reason is often why a person might be unable to remember what color something was, regardless of how much that person might like a particular color!
I've tried Bates Method and found the following results; my eyesight improved by twice the normal distance for entire days, and I had 30-minute steady "clear flashes" where everything became nearly crystal-clear (between 15/20-20/20 instead of 3/20). Colors became more vivid, and things became more 3-D, etc. Every other blink I'd get an even more clear flash where I could see every detail along the horizon, from trees to airplanes to sharp edges of everything.
"That's impossible" is the first thing most people might be thinking as they read this. After all, optometry doctrine states that deteriorating vision cannot be reversed permanently. But as I saw flashes increase in both occurrence and duration as days went on, it was the same as what I'd read had mentioned would happen. The flashes are supposed to happen so frequently that one day you don't notice any more flashes, only steady, clear vision.
I even tested on a Snellen eye chart from proper distances and found that at times the "clear flashes" would exceed 20/20, like once every 30 minutes. The other clear flashes occurred randomly but more frequently. I did not squint or water eyes. I tried to imagine something perfectly, by doing something like recalling an early childhood memory when I could see better than 20/20. Or if someone has never had good eyesight, he can try to recall the most clear, specific area of something he's ever seen using glasses previously (for example, the tip of a leaf instead of the whole leaf) but this time visualize and then try to look at something (anything!) and sometimes the vision will clear up, sometimes it won't. The technique of observing a small area of something rather than the whole is called central fixation, but it's not staring because the eyes are supposed to keep moving slightly all the time. Staring, which is commonly advocated in contemporary "eye exercises", is considered by the Bates method as one of the worst things you can do to your eyes. Psychology has revealed that if a person stares at something without blinking for several seconds the image will extinguish and it will cause mental strain. It is little wonder then, that people who stare too much end up having poor vision... the eyes are forced to "diffuse" and focus on the whole of something instead of "central fixation" which is supposed to be observing specific details of something. Eventually, the eyes reinforce the diffusion habit and blurring becomes more commonplace because the eyes have fallen into the habit of seeing the whole of something instead of a specific area. Instead of observing the texture on a leaf, you would instead be observing a leaf's shape and that it's green but you'll never notice the texture on it because your eyes no longer care. Staring while doing this would be like daydreaming - you're not really paying attention, you're just half-there. Your brain gets that message, and the eye muscles adjust accordingly to accompany this diffusion/blur/strain.
Once one has gotten LASIK, there is no turning back. As I said earlier, there is a co-balance between eye muscle tension and acuity when it comes to Bates thinking, so what LASIK does is destroys this proportion so you will no longer be able to achieve perfect relaxation and perfect eyesight at the same time. So if anyone's thinking about getting LASIK, I suggest you be sure to read up about Natural Vision Improvement (NVI) first. The Bates method especially. With NVI, it is also possible to improve eyesight beyond 20/20 and retain it even if you ever become 100 years old. This would be important to a deaf person, no doubt. Being both deaf and blind would be a tremendous challenge for anyone.
