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Relearning to See: Improve Your Eyesight Naturally!?
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Eyesight - We Love It
Longer than I anticipated but, well, I was on a roll it seems! :-) The first part is relevant to the discussion specifically, the later parts are about my experiments with vision more generally. Being interested in those parts is optional! Added headings for clarity.
Corrective Lenses and Vision
>Lenses and depth and the like
Well we've gone round in circles! It occurs to me that we may also be talking at cross-purposes, since it matters here whether we are taking the view that the myopia is due to just lens curvature or eye elongation. My own quickie diagram is incorrect in that it is based on the latter but sort of fudges it because it doesn't show the extended length of the eyeball. (Might update later but on mobile.)
Aside - We are taking a generally simplistic view here anyway, as regards the deviation being consistent and proportional and so on, and the being no feedback effect. There is certainly a gradual feedback effect, which is what got me experimenting in the first place (more later).
Mind, Brain, Perception
>I think you're vastly overplaying the role the brain has in our vision. 99% of the time, what light your eyes visually capture is what you see, exactly, and operates exactly like a camera for the most part.
[There's a reason for pursuing this bit, related to vision improvement, so stick with me here. You can skim it, the purpose will become clear in a moment.]
The problem here is that a camera does not "see", it simply collects light. For instance, the camera does not perceive objects or locations. It is we who "see" for the camera when we view the result.
What we see is at the very least organised by and in the mind, because the eye alone does not receive the information we actually perceive. We could say it is "processed" but that's perhaps a little simplified - "integrated with knowledge" perhaps.
Taking the camera analogy though: In basic terms, our eye has 'sensors' and collects three different regions of the spectrum, it does not collect "colours". It knows in-focus and out-of-focus, it does not collect "depth". It does know of continuous regions and the image is inverted, it does not collect "shapes".
So even before we have got to what you might call "information processing and integration" (where this turns into the seamless experiencing of recognisable objects), even the most simple version of vision does not correspond to the camera model.
We could go on and on here - but the basic point is simply: Whether it is "simply seeing" or "sophisticated perceiving", it is in and of the mind 100%, "inspired by" the limited information collected by the eye. A more subtle point is that our diagramming of rays and images and our camera analogies, is that those are something conceived and seen. There is in fact no "image" on the retina and there is no "seeing" there, as such.
Myopes and Self-Correction
>[On myopes and tensing...] Glasses wouldn't fix it if that was the case, unless it was a consistently predictable defect in the motor function of the eye somehow.
I think that would be exactly the idea: that myopia was a consistent residual tension in the muscles, leading to a consistent elongation of the eyeball (say).
>[On correcting one's eyes] I've had success "willing" my eye to see things in focus that weren't ever before.
I experimented with that and - it exactly doesn't work, you're right.
I took two approaches. The first was based on the book <em>Relearning to See</em> which is a variation of the Bates Method. That book is mostly a thorough discussion of eye physiology, which is then used as knowledge to allow you to retrain or your eye habits. (It's a good read even if you're not interested in the improvement aspect. You can remain skeptical on the "method" itself.)
>[On willing] Note this is because of the way the muscles feel on your eyes, not the actual image itself, which looks fine.
This is exactly what I encountered! And it relates to what I said yesterday about having to "look over there to see over here". It's what happens when you try to compensate for (say) an elongated eyeball, rather than actually release the eyeball to its correct shape.
I got to thinking... surely seeing can't involve effort like this...
So the second approach was inspired by an implied aspect of the first approach, and a paper I read elsewhere. The implied aspect is that despite the method being physical, a lot of it seems to involve how you conceived of what you were doing, and eventually letting go of control.
One of Bates' key methods was "imagining complete blackness" or a period of time each day. When doing this I realised I was "letting go of my eyes" by default and I would usually get a clear period of vision afterwards. I also noticed that I was "sitting back in my head" when I did this and that this was inherently relaxing.
A very pleasant experience, and just what I was after, but how to think of it?
Letting the World come to You
The way I conceived of this was that it was like relaxing and "letting the world come to you". As soon as I moved forward mentally and "tried to see", however, my eyes would tense up and my vision would become less distinct - not just in terms of focus of image, but in terms of "clarity of perception".
It's as if you could focus your attention on different parts of your mind - if you focused on "location" of the "raw seeing" then that interfered with vision as if you were taking manual control, whereas if you focused on the "location" of "overall perceiving" than that was all taken care of automatically. But even thinking about the former shifts you away from the latter.
The paper I came across called this "seeing from the core". I can't find the original but there's a copy of something else the author wrote on some crap website: <em>The Reptilian Brain, Dissociation and Seeing from the Core</em>
Anyway, the overall idea is simple: Stop interfering with what are intended to be automatic systems, let your body and your mind do the work for you and present the results. Any attempts to manually interfere are doomed to locked-in failure at worst, very high-maintenance "success" at best.
The Larger Picture
(Excuse pun.)
The broader idea is applicable more generally - e.g. physical motion and attention. Things like the Alexander Technique are pretty much based around that. (Recommended reading here if that interests you at all.)
The issue becomes that you end up working "how" to let perception happens. And of course if you rely on being able to see in order to, like, earn money and have a life, it's not so easy to commit to experimenting - although daily practice a la Alexander Technique relaxation is one way (example here) and including vision in that.
TL;DR: Everything I did to try and improve my eyesight by direct control failed. Taking an indirect approach produced results. I don't understand the mechanism think the key was working on "perceiving" rather than "seeing".
Eye exercises and breaks
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