Vistabona

World is moving. Let it happens. People move all day. It is normal, right and proper to do so.  Try to have your head, or a finger of your hand, or a toe of your feet immobile. Or just try to have your eyes open continuously. Try to fix your sight to one small letter, or a side of it, without moving your eyelids and feel what happens. Most of people who make this experiment they discover that their minds wander and vision is reduced. They begin to feel pain and fatigue.

Better Eyesight, 1925 December: Displacement. The observed point changes quickly and continuously. Everyone has an imperfect view. They make an effort having their eyes immobile.  Our eyes have not the ability to stand. Staring is not possible.  It is not possible to look continuously to something; your eyes finally will move, your eyelids will be closed and the effort will be followed to an imperfect sight.

In many cases the effort to be concentrated in one point can make you feel a headache, pain in your eyes or fatigue.  People with a normal sight don´t need to be concentrated to see or make an effort.  Their eyes are relaxed, and when they are relaxed they move continuously. When your eyes are moving, you can imagine that immobile objects move to the opposite way of your head.

…Many students have the difficulty to imagine that fixed objects move to the opposite way to the movement of their head and eyes. When pain, fatigue or other symptoms are present, it means that the person, conscious or unconsciously, is trying to imagine that fixed objects don´t move.

…When shifting (movement of eyes) is well done, your memory, imagination, mental efficiency and sight are improved until they are normal.

Sometimes occurs when, consciously or wilfully (you see objects) wrongly, you can get a better understanding in the right way to execute the movement. When the eyes move to the right side, fixed objects should appear moving to the left.  This is when Bates says: “A purpose of the eye movement”. But you can find many examples about the apparent movement of objects and the illusion of relative and opposite motion.

From the magazine Eyesight, July, 1920: LOOK AT THINGS IN MOTION.

When the vision is perfect, the person perceives objects he sees in motion. When you look at a letter from a short distance you see it in movement. The sidewalk seems to be closer you when you cross the way and houses goes in the opposite. When you read, it seems that page moves in the opposite side to the movement of your eyes. If you try to imagine immobile things, your vision get worse and the sensation of pain appears, not only in your eyes or your head, even other parts of your body.

This movement is so short that is hardly noticeable unless you pay attention. But it can be easily observed by people with a poor vision. If these people, for example, put a hand to 15cm from the face and they move quickly the head to the right, and eyes to the left side, the hand appears to move in the opposite way to the eyes. If you don´t do it continuously you can imagine that fixed objects are really fixed and it is very dangerous for your eyes. Some people say that moving objects make them feel bad. You can always show that the discomfort doesn´t depends on the movement of things, but the attempt to stop them.

One of the most important things I teach my students is that it is impossible to look at a point and imagine it immobile for sometime. The effort makes you to feel uncomfortable and it ruins the view.

Better Eyesight, July 1927: You acquire the habit to see comfortably fixed objects in movement until it is unconsciously.

Better Eyesight, September, 1927: You can imagine fixed objects moving in the opposite way to the movement of your head and eyes. When you walk into a room, or down the street, you perceive as the floor, or sidewalk, appears to move you while the objects of the sides come in the opposite direction to the one of your body.

Better Eyesight, December, 1927: We note how important is to practise continuously certain activities like imagine the movement of fixed objects in the opposite way to the movement of the head and eyes.

The main concept joined to the movement is the opposite and apparent motion.  Apparent motion is the typical example of the teaching of Bates, which seems contradictory. Bates discovered that vision can´t be normal without the experience of opposite movement.

In whatever direction we move our eyes fix objects appear to move in the opposite way. When someone is driving; the street, hills, trees, houses…everything appears to move in the opposite way to the car. If the car (and you!) is moving to the North, every fixed object outside the car will appear moving to the south. And if you (in your car) are coming out from a parking it will appear that objects move forwards. These are examples of the apparent movement.

When a child is pushed up by a swing, the world seems to move down.  And when the child is going down, the world seems to go up in the opposite way.

When we are on a carousel, the world seems to move in the opposite way.

When we pay attention to the object in motion, the concept of opposite movement appears to be acute because we put attention on the object which is in movement and not to the other that seems to move in the opposite way. For example, watching a bird crossing a field, the illusion of the apparent movement of trees in the opposite way it happens, mainly, unconsciously.

If we pay attention to the house beyond the street and one car passes in front of, the house appears to be stand while the car is moving. But if our attention is on the car when the house passes, it doesn´t appear to be stopped – Rather it seems to move in the opposite way to the movement of the car.

We say that the sun sets, but it would be better to say that the earth goes up. As we say that the sun rises in the morning, while the earth goes down. The sun does not go down, is the land that rounds. The sun, immobile, seems to move in the opposite way to the earth movement. Obviously fixed objects don´t move-, they seems to move. Bates discovered this illusion. Fixed objects seem to move against the direction of the head-   is essential for normal and good vision. The movement and the illusion of the contrary motion happen all the time.

The periphery is reduced at the same time than we reduce our capacity to be opened to the world.

Excessive fixation of sight created by screens and obsessions in addition to stress and confusion, are factors which help to loose the periphery.

There is a simple exercise to improve the periphery, and I personally recommend it, when we start using reticular glasses because, this glasses help to the fixation of eyes, in addition to the movement and focusing, but they don´t work the periphery:

We need a black colour paper and we will cut the following sizes; 3,40 cm. x 6,35cm.,  5,10 cm. x 8,90 cm. and 5,10 cm. x 12,70 cm. Cut a double-sided zeal for sticking in the center of each rectangle that we previously have cut. We will notice that if we stick it to our nose, each rectangle has different peripheries.  The most important thing is that, when we have the rectangle closed to our nose, we are able to see that the periphery is well distributed on all sides.

The exercise has to be done so that we walk without looking the periphery, but the black paper; I mean that ,when we walk, periphery moves, and the conscience of periphery makes us to recover old registers. You can find videos about it on the Web: “Strengthen visual power”, and other videos from YouTube.