Vision problems are epidemic in our society. Nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, as well as more serious disorders like cataracts and glaucoma, they’re all part of the picture. Socially, vision problems have gone from signs of weakness to being so widespread as to be perfectly acceptable, even normal. Not too long ago, it was still out of fashion to wear glasses; now I hear there are even people with good vision who wear glasses for the look!
There are a lot of theories on the causes of this vision epidemic; certainly poor diet, stress, technology, industry, etc. can’t help. But in the end, like many other things that aren’t urgent enough for a busy person to worry about, we take the easy way out and get glasses or contact lenses, or some of the more cutting-edge technologies like lasik.
But there are alternatives out there, and many of them have their origins with a man named William Horatio Bates.
If you’re interested in natural vision improvement, you’ve probably heard of Dr. Bates. He was an ophthalmologist in the early part of the twentieth century who broke with the mainstream idea (which is, to my understanding, still mainstream) that vision, once worsened, cannot improve. The mainstream “cure” for vision problems was, inevitably, corrective lenses; but to him, this made little sense. It was like telling a person with a broken arm that they must stay in a cast for the rest of their life. So he set out to discover if it were possible to restore perfect eyesight.
To make a long story short, he did indeed find that this was possible. For this he was essentially excommunicated from the medical community.
I suppose this has always been the story of mavericks who devise better ways of doing things, but I’m always surprised by attacks on this sort of thing because it is perfectly verifiable in a scientific way.
The essence of the Bates Method and its successors is actually quite simple:
Relax.
The principle of relaxation is central to natural vision improvement. And it applies on multiple levels: mental, emotional, and physical. Physically, the idea is that stress placed on the eyeball by the muscles that support and move it will deform it; and a misshapen eyeball will see things less clearly (for instance, a myopic eyeball looks like this).
But this also hints at the close relationship between the mind and the eye. To be sure, my philosophy is that mind and body are inseparable, but there’s a particularly intimate relationship between mind and eye. Because we modern humans are so visually oriented, so much of what we intend, think and do is related to vision. Some of this has been validated, for instance, in the concept of “eye accessing cues” from Neurolinguistic Programming, in which the direction the eye flickers in response to different types of thinking can give the observer hints as to those types of thoughts. (These were exhibited in the Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey movie, The Negotiator.) Thus, relaxing the eye and the vision means simultaneously setting the mind to rest.
Of course, this is much easier said than done, for at least two reasons.
First, for many people, to be told to “relax” means to take a break. Get out of the car, get off of the computer, go outside, do a little stretching or massage or take a hot bath. While these activities are indeed relaxing, the general problem is that with these methods, you remove yourself from the activity that makes you tense.
The eyes are never on break. Not even when they are shut; not even when you’re unconscious. This is basically because the eyes are so connected with our mental state, that, like the mind, they’re always focusing on something.
So how do you relax something that’s always moving? How do you tell a marathon runner to relax? That sort of relaxation necessarily means something very different from simply stopping the marathon, going home and taking a hot shower.
The second problem is that the eyes, being so connected to the movements of the mind, operate as subconsciously as the movements of the mind. Anyone who meditates can tell you how difficult it is to control the mind; telling it to relax can feel as meaningless as telling a screaming two-year-old to relax! So anything done directly to the eyes will not work. Indirect methods have to be employed.
Thus, principles of natural vision were developed, habits of use and self-functioning were designed to guide individuals into seeing better — not by direct force, but almost by inference.
The details will vary from teacher to teacher, but the essence is the same. My own teacher, Thomas Quackenbush, described three simple habits:
- Breathe
- Blink
- Brush
The first two are fairly straightforward habits to adopt: Relaxed breathing to counteract the common modern habit of holding one’s breath; frequent blinking (once every 2-3 seconds) to counteract the common modern habit of staring. The third is an imaginative way to gently focus the eye, by pretending that there’s a brush or pencil or other implement extending from the tip of the nose to the visual point of focus.
There are in fact a great variety of ways to relax the eye, from coming as close to a “break” from seeing as possible (“palming”) to more active methods such as gently swaying the body and relaxing the vision. All of them are different variations on the same theme.
But it must be a powerful thing that prevents us from relaxing if, for all of these methods, so many people still have vision problems. Even the people who practice natural vision improvement have to constantly work at it, which tells me that either the technique is wrong or there is something more systematic about it.
Probably both are true. Many people lack instruction, and the inner resources to figure it out on their own with only words on a page to help them out. Even those who have had instruction have a lot of obstacles to go through in their own minds and bodies; restrictions to energy circulation and obstacles to total relaxation are many, varied, and complex.
But on the broader scale, we in the industrialized world have become very stressed, for any number of reasons. How can we relax if relaxing means allowing our senses to open, and open senses means allowing ugliness, destruction, poverty, and waste into our consciousness? How can we relax if relaxing means coming to terms with what we’ve done to ourselves and each other?
Yes, I believe ultimately that there’s also a spiritual dimension to vision, which means that we have blocked out of our own consciousness our ability to tune in to others, and this inevitably will lead to a narrowing of the senses.
Whatever reasons there are for such widespread and unabating visual disturbances, the truth is that the ability to relax totally while maintaining presence in this world is the ultimate goal, and it is no surprise to me why this is so difficult, in a world that has fast, loud, scary, and complicated. On the same token, though, we can then turn around and use vision improvement as a doorway (one of many) to reenter the world of the present, to re-sanctify what has been profane, to rewild the self.
So, make a beginning of it; do what you can to begin this process of unwinding what is taut. Allow yourself to see what’s there, even if all you can see (literally, or metaphorically) is a big blur. This is the painful process we must go through.
For more resources, start with http://www.iblindness.org. They have among their offerings a free online copy of Dr. Bates’ original book.
[...] came across this article called Natural Vision Improvement and through it this site called Imagination Blindness. I hope it benefits someone, [...]
I only wish it was that easy. I’m super relaxed and have been from years and still have far and near sightedness….
What do you mean by super relaxed?
One thing I think is interesting is that, for instance, tai chi masters achieve a level of relaxation that far surpasses the normal person. They can relax muscles other people don’t even know exist. So maybe a more “differential diagnosis” of relaxation and tension could yield some result.