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By Vezhon |
INTRODUCTION BY SHEPHERD HOODWIN
HOW TO DO THE OMNISION PRACTICES
DAILY INTEGRATION OF THE OMNISION PRACTICES
OMNISION VISION TRAINING: REMINDERS, ENCOURAGEMENTS, & CONCLUSIONS
In 1982, I participated in a workshop called "Omnision," led by Vezhon (called Jiun then) and his partner, Zhidre. It was designed to enable one to see without glasses.
It had two aspects to it. One was my first exposure to psychosomatic medicine, illustrating that nearsightedness can be caused by a decision made, often in childhood, not to see because of fear of what was going on around one. Several stories were related about people, both within the workshop and on their own, who got in touch with that decision and changed it, enabling them to see without glasses or contact lenses, either temporarily or permanently. In fact, two friends of mine had that experience; for one, it only lasted an hour and came after he decided to stop running away from something he'd been avoiding. The other friend's seeing was also temporary, and it "freaked her out"-it brought her face to face with her fears.
There is a book, Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman, about the author's experience of opening to seeing through meditation. His initial experience was also temporary, but through going back again and again to the state of seeing, he was able to make it permanent.
The other aspect of the workshop involved teaching us some powerful, revolutionary vision practices, most of them created in the 1930s, I believe, by a Captain Hagmann, who had been an optometrist in San Francisco. Rather than prescribing glasses, he was curing people's myopia until the AMA ran him out of town. Vezhon was fortunate enough to study with him, and I am passing along the gist of the vision practices here. (Vezhon called them "practices" rather than "exercises" because they are not exercising muscles, like some of the Bates and other methods. Instead, they help us let our eyes be in their proper balance, working together.)
In my mind, Captain Hagmann was an amazing trailblazer like others early in the century who discovered holistic cures that worked but who were persecuted as quacks by threatened establishment practitioners. I am posting this material, with Vezhon's permission, because not many people know about it and it would be a shame if his work were lost. (It is okay for you to distribute this material as long as you don't receive money for it.)
I did the practices for three weeks after the workshop and achieved a 20% improvement in my vision. I had an extremely high correction (-11 diopters). During that time I did not wear my glasses and was basically blind (couldn't drive, etc.). I had hoped for a quick, total rehabilitation of my vision. It turned out that I wasn't doing the practices properly, and I still got this improvement. However, I needed to go back to work and life, and I didn't keep up doing them. (After stopping, I lost half of my improvement fairly quickly, and the other half over time.) I did, by the way, find the practices to be extremely relaxing. After doing them for 15 minutes, I'd go sleep for three hours! So it was working with some pretty deep stuff in me.
In 1997, I had lasik eye surgery, and now am able to see without glasses or contacts. For me, it was a good choice and I'm happy with the results. At that point, I thought that the Omnision practices might be worth picking up again, to fine-tune my vision and maintain my improvement. I had saved some the materials, and Zhidre sent me the rest of the workshop packet. I had it scanned, and this is what I'm presenting here.
Keep in mind that these materials were an adjunct to a hands-on workshop, and that it's been fifteen years since I attended the workshop. The materials weren't intended to stand alone, to teach the practices without demonstration. I don't remember a lot of it, and can't coach you on it. However, if you persevere with the materials, you can probably figure out most of it. Vezhon is now dealing with a severe illness and is therefore also not available as a resource. (In fact, he stopped teaching the workshop many years ago).
Besides these scanned printed materials, each workshop participant received in his/her packet some simple aids made with thick paper: a "peripheral vision strip" about 9" x 1.25" and a "split vision strip" about 4.5" x 1.625". A V for reading was about 8.5" long on each leg and 4.25" from its point to its "crotch." An "oscillating dominance reinforcer," or red-green strip glasses, was like a mask with a strip of red gel over the right eye and a strip of green gel over the left. There were two pieces of yarn, each about six feet long (one orange, and one black), and a cotton ball to go in one's telephone ear.
Vezhon emphasized that "Doubling at the Peripheries" in a darkroom is by far the most important and effective practice, and that is the only one I have seriously worked with. I do it in a bathroom that can be completely darkened. You'll need a bit of glow-in-the-dark tape (theaters use it to mark where scenery should go during blackouts). If you can't find any, I'll send you a piece if you send me a self-addressed stamped envelope. If you don't have a room or a closet that can be completely darkened and that is suitable for this practice, you can do it in regular light (explained in #1), although you should at least be able to do the darkroom practices at night after dark.
If you have any other Captain Hagmann resources to share, let me know and I'll add them to this site.
Good luck on your vision work!
P.S. January, 1998
I was delighted to run across an ad for the School of Better Eyesight in LA. Gloria, the founder, has traveled the world over the last 20 years studying with experts in natural vision improvement, especially with those who had been students of Dr. Bates. She now probably knows as much about natural vision improvement techniques as anyone on the planet (that hyperbole is just a guess on my part). She had wondered why Dr. Bates documented correcting eyesight in a few weeks but that those who later used his teachings were not getting those kind of results. She learned that people were using primitive versions of his work because they didn't truly understand what he was doing. Gloria also studied with Capt. Hagmann. Hagmann didn't think much of Bate's work, but Gloria feels that Hagmann didn't understand it. I was excited that Gloria had synthesized the teachings of both Hagmann and Bates.
In January, 1998, seven months after my lasik eye surgery, my left eye, which had been 20/15 immediately following the surgery, had regressed to 20/40. Dr. Chayet had expected it would regress to 20/20, although this amount of regression is still considered within normal bounds (about 15% of those who undergo the surgery require a second "touch-up" surgery later.) I am strongly left-eye dominant, and so life was beginning to be a blur again. My right eye, which had been 20/30 after the surgery and had been predicted to regress to 20/40, instead improved to 20/25, which made no sense to my doctor. He offered to do a touch-up surgery on the left eye. I told him that I was going to first try vision retraining. I have long been aware that I carry a great deal of tension around my eyes. Gloria has seen many cases of people losing some or much of their vision improvement after surgery because they didn't correct the underlying cause of their problem, which is faulty vision habits.
The week after the exam I had a private lesson and my first class with Gloria, and it was life-changing. The insights I gained seem simple and even obvious in hindsight, but they had never occurred to me before. They linked several life issues for me that I'd never connected before and helped me release some self-judgments I'd been holding.
I'd long felt some shame and embarrassment over my problems focusing in life, of staying present in the moment, and related problems such as remembering names and faces. I've blamed much of this on my tendency to be chronically tired, and that certainly relates, but I also felt that if I were more disciplined and just worked harder to be present, I would overcome these problems.
Gloria illuminated that my problem was exactly the opposite: I was already working too hard, and when I naturally got tired from this, I'd go away--it was just too much work!
Gloria explained that nearsighted people typically try to bring the detail of an image that is "out there" "in here" which makes it bigger but also blurrier (as when you blow up a photograph). This might have begun as an effort to block out everything else around it, wanting to keep out the world. This was certainly the case for me as a seven-year-old when I got my first pair of glasses: I didn't feel I lived in a friendly world, what with my mother being ill and my parents getting divorced. I long ago noticed that I needed new glasses every six months until I turned 16, when I began to have some hope in life as a result of finding my first spiritual path. (It is also typical that nearsightedness follows this kind of pattern, with the degradation of vision starting in childhood and mostly ending in the teens.)
I had learned in Vezhon's workshop that often we don't see because part of us really doesn't want to. Since then, I often consciously affirmed that I really do want to see, but my eyesight hadn't improved, so I figured that some part of me was still invested in my not seeing. However, Gloria said that frequently, what begins as a dysfunctional method of coping crystallizes into habit and can remain long after the original intent has been cleared. So this insight was also helpful in releasing a self-judgment.
The nearsighted person also tends to fix his vision, not only staring (which I have tended to do) but trying to grab hold of the image to make it more clear. I have had this mental habit as well: trying to hold onto thoughts and wrestle with them until they were clear. Trying too hard in general has been an issue I've worked with in this life.
However, the nature of healthy vision is constant movement in the eyes: letting go allows this. One gets the clearest vision of a point for only a fraction of a second; as soon as the gaze is fixed or held, the vision starts to blur. Observing young children demonstrates much about the natural way of seeing--their gaze is constantly moving. Another side of this is moving the head: in dysfunctional vision, the head doesn't move much, and the eyes are worked. In healthy vision, the whole head moves on the "hinge" where the neck joins the head. This is where I tend to get headaches. I think that learning to keep my head loose and moving in vision is going to release a lot of the tension I carry there and help eliminate the headaches.
Much of Gloria's work seems to involve restoring movement and breaking the stare. Practices include swinging the whole body and noticing movement--for example, the way that when something moves, the background seems to move in the opposite direction. She also supplied a black grill that looks a bit like a heating vent: you move it up and down or sideways as you move your head in the opposite direction. You can do it with your eyes closed with the sun directly ahead, or with open eyes and not looking directly into the sun.
Gloria said that we see with our noses, meaning that we should point our noses at what we wish to see. She emphasized that seeing doesn't happen in the eyes but in the part of the brain that is also where the back of the head and the neck meet--the eyes are just holes in the head that receive the information. I'm finding it very helpful to withdraw energy from the eyes and see from that brain point: it releases tension. It feels almost as if I'm a robot, moving my head on that hinge and seeing through "glass holes."
As in all things, there is a right balance. For me as a person who has habitually used too much tension to see, relaxing for me seemed like glazing over and not seeing, giving in to the blur. But what is most relaxing is neither total passivity nor total activity: it is just noticing what's out there.
In nearsightedness, there is self-preoccupation--as a survival technique, one shuts out the outside and closes in on self (maybe focusing on self because it seems that nobody else will). In farsightedness, there may be an avoidance of focusing on self and instead trying to focus on and take in everything "out there" at once. In healthy seeing, one looks out there because of genuine, natural interest in what's out there--there is no trying.
A key concept is that in natural eyesight, there is one point in the center of our field of vision that is sharpest, with a slight blurring to the peripheries (I believe this applies to photography, too.) One keeps moving the focus point to take things in. The emphasis is on the focus of the moment, but the periphery provides the context that makes that focus meaningful. In nearsightedness, there can be an effort to block out that context; in farsightedness, there can be an effort to see everything equally all at once, to "gobble it up" whole.
I think my eyesight has improved already, and I feel less tension in my eyes, although old habits don't disappear overnight.
Obviously, I am totally a beginner with Gloria. I just wanted to share my experience thus far (I have four more classes to go). I am feeling quite hopeful and excited that I can learn to see in a relaxed, natural way.
Gloria said that the fact that I had surgery means that my eyes will never totally relax: the muscles will need to hold some tension to compensate for the change in the cornea from the surgery. However, I can get much improvement. I don't regret the surgery, because otherwise it would have probably taken a year of much diligence, money, and trips to the eye doctor to get incrementally weaker prescriptions for contacts. I'm not sure I would have done that. Using vision practices to go from 20/40 to better than 20/20 seems much more doable for me than going from 20/1150 to 20/20.
#1 DOUBLING AT THE PERIPHERIES (Useful all day, when dark room not available)
STEP I: Hold two pencils as far to the peripheries as you can double them --gradually work to move them farther out to the peripheries.
STEP 2: Once in place (held at farthest out point that you can double them) work to see all the images equally clearly and stably -- through concentrated attentiveness.
NOTE: Hold them as close in to the face as is possible to make doubles.
NOTE: The pencils are held still, at your farthest out point that you can double them.
NOTE: It is much easier if you are looking against a plain background, like a white wall or even ceiling; I like to look through a window with the sky as plain background.
NOTE: Protracted holding up of arms is difficult. The pencils can be stuck in the corrugated folds of a wall of corrugated box which you set on a table & sit facing.
NOTE: If you are being exhausted by experiencing too much strain, try to consciously relax your eyes and let go in and with them (don't "struggle" with the practice). Take some deep breaths, blink, push the acupressure point we demonstrated, or even stop and "palm" for a while, until ready to move on with the practice.
NOTE: Use affirmations (auto-suggestion) reinforcing your conviction that you CAN see and are seeing better. Also your form of meditation, if you have one, may be compatible while doubling. Music can tie the practice into an aesthetic, pleasurable experience especially if the music is non-distracting, soothing, inspiring to you. If you can't keep it up under your own power, have your mate give you a back massage during the 15 minutes practice so as to relax and pacify you, and let you flow with it.
NOTE: The most advanced form of this practice is several pencils in each hand: each of a different color, so you can tell if you are doubling each color in each hand.
NOTE: This is the single most important practice, so do it at every opportunity. In answer to a frequent question: no, you cannot do it too much and you can not hurt yourself by doing it too much. The more gung ho the better, but don't push beyond limits that feel right for you.
#2 DARK ROOM (10 times as effective as doing same practices outside dark room)
FIRST WEEK OF DARK ROOM WORK: Flash the light on, and immediately off. Remain in darkness at least 5 seconds. Repeat this sequence: 5 seconds dark, flashlight on and right off, 5 seconds dark, flash on... exact timing is not imperative, flow with a pace that feels right for you.
AFTER FIRST WEEK: (if vision not already restored, or restored but going on for super-vision) Light remains on until eyes adapted; then off about 4 times as long; repeat. Your eyes may adapt in 5 seconds, perhaps taking 6,7,8... do a dark period 4 time as long, say 20 seconds, or up to 30 seconds.
NOTE: Complete darkness is most effective, as the pupil opens widest in response to it. The degree of brightness of the light phase is not important, since we are simply closing the pupil down (in the light) so we can reopen it in the pitch blackness
PRACTICES FOR THE DARK ROOM (to do while turning lights on and off by above sequences) There are two alternative practices. Rotate back and forth between them as either becomes boring. Thus in a 15 minute session, spend like 4 minutes with "a" and then 4 with "b" followed by another 4 of "a" and 4 of "b"
a) WATCH THE FOUR CORNERS (all at once) of the mirror. Cut one of your glow tape squares into 4 pieces, after peeling backs off, and stick one piece to each corner. For off-sized mirrors, assume usual medicine chest size dimensions to place the four pieces arbitrarily in "corners." Your eyeballs are aimed looking into their mirror images, but all your awareness (seeing) is on the four corners (there is no doubling involved). Simply concentrate on the 4 corners, while light goes on and off.
DOUBLING AT THE PERIPHERIES while in the dark room setting, using glow tape. Cut your other tape into four, placing them at same distance apart on mirror as you can hold pencils apart and double them (or as you can hold glow tapes in your fingers apart and double them) so that on each side are two, one above the other, as though on the top and bottom of your two pencils held to each side... or even DO put glow tape pieces on tops and bottoms of your pencils in your corrugated box which you may then use in the dark room setting for this practice.
#3 OMNI-VISION: STEREOSCOPIC SEEING (Conscious awareness of peripheries)
MOVIES: Be aware of the four corners of the screen (even though your eyes move following action).
NOTE: Life is like a movie, a movie occurring, which we want to watch stereoscopically. Although stereoscopic seeing was introduced in the workshop as a practice to integrate in daily life while watching movies, throughout all one's daily life we now want to ALWAYS BE AWARE TO THE PERIPHERIES!
NOTE: In movies or in life, to avoid dependency on lenses, nearsighted people should position themselves close to what needs to be seen (gradually working their way farther back and away) while farsighted do just the reverse. Break your dependency!
#4 WATCH OBJECTS GO BY YOUR EARS (Whenever you are in motion)
RIDING AS A CAR PASSENGER OR WALKING ALONG, select one object on each side of the road or pathway you are walking, equally far away from you, but not too far ahead, and watch each go by simultaneously (there is no doubling involved in this).
#4B PERIPHERAL VISION STRIP (The long and narrow piece of card stock in the kit)
ALSO WHILE RIDING IN CAR, tape it to forehead. Simply watch blurring scenery fly by peripheries. If it is too frustrating being that wide, narrow down its width.
#5A SPLIT VISION STRIP (Worn between the eyes, over the nose) (I simply use a 3x5 index card taped vertically, the long side trimmed, on the bridge of my nose.--SGH)
IDEAL WHILE DRIVING (over or under glasses, if glasses necessary) but wear it all the time when not doing other practices (all of which take precedence over this, which is only a fill-in between other practices).
NOTE: Be sure it is centered on your face, evenly between the eyes. Ask someone to look at you and tell you if straight -- or just looking in the mirror should tell you.
NOTE: Beware of getting a suntan with a white square patch on face, and blowing out open car window.
#5B OSCILLATING DOMINANCE REINFORCER (Red-green strip glasses)
IDEAL WHILE DRIVING, especially following a red car. Right eye should be dominant or favored, then left, then right -- oscillating. The O.D. Reinforcer can help you consciously encourage this oscillation, or, if too difficult for you at this point, wait to use the Reinforcer until your vacationing eye is a little bit more back into function. (This device is meant for use while watching moving objects.)
#6 READING
RULER: hold vertically just out in front of one's nose so one reads through its two shadow images. Neither eye sees entire page by itself (both eyes must work to read).
V HELD STILL: hold still in front of book, so one reads through the shadow images of its doubling stems, as one did through the ruler. The line of print being read should be about at the level of just above the crotch of the V.
V IN MOTION: let the illusory "pointer" or pyramid point to and underline each word as you read it (moving the pointer along the page).In both "V" practices the V can be held as an "A". (V is courtesy of Chas. R. Kelley)
OMNISION READING: instead of holding head still and moving eyes (chicken-pecking) hold eyes still in sockets and glide head along the line (as if nose underlining the line you are reading) with all in focus at once: a good beginning speed-reading technique, while also practicing Omnision.
#7 A-V-X (The yarn)
Tape it to a window (or anywhere) and hold other end to your nose. At first have helper run finger tip up and down yarn in random manner, while you follow the finger the rest of the yarn doubling. Then take charge yourself, letting your eyes randomly flow up and down the yarn, forming the A, V, and various forms of X.
#8 2-HANDED DRAWING (AND ARITHMETIC) (Super-Vision)
Stand facing a wall. At eye height, tape two pieces of paper up, with a small space between them. Focus eyeballs in space between. With each hand (simultaneously) draw something different on each page. This will force you to look at what you are drawing (looking in 2 directions at once), having to think in 2 directions at once and to physically coordinate in 2 directions at once. Ideal for children, in formative development. The most creative and fun of Omnision practices and leading to the capacity to think of two areas of concern (two problems or challenges) at once and to implement action on both at once (physically expressing both at once).
Remember the genius that expresses itself through the ability to creatively think and represent one's thought in 2 areas at once: President Garfield writing a passage in Greek with his Left hand, while at the same time writing a different passage in Latin with his right; Count de St. Germain writing love letter with left and set of mystical verses with right, "to prove that he could use both lobes of his brain independently at the same time." And remember the slow-learner 4th graders who mastered 2-handed arithmetic basics readily, when Capt. Hagmann went to parochial school.
#9 3D COTTON IN YOUR TELEPHONE EAR (Equalizing your Hearing)
Try this further experiment, with your hearing. For several days, wear a cotton wad in the ear you use for the telephone. This will dampen its acuity, equalizing it with the other ear, so you get used to hearing equally through both ears, by extension of Omnision principles to hearing, and by Hagmann's claim. Thus you will no longer listen through favoring one ear, the one cultivated to greater acuity and favored status.
A FUNDAMENTAL TEST: WATCHING A DOUBLED TV SET (Learning to stabilize the eyes)
Remember that every Omnision practice demands that the eyes be held still, never moving them in their sockets during any practices. And that while many people believe they are holding their eyes still, they are not. Capt. Hagmann's test "against that pernicious habit of eyeball wiggling," is holding up a finger, focusing on it, and perceiving two TV sets operating in the distance, one on either side of the finger. Each should be stable to either side of the finger. If one wavers, unstably, then, says Hagmann, you are not holding your eyes steady. This then is a technique to use to test and assure your ability to hold your eyes STILL, which is a prerequisite to all the other practices, so that you may go on to do all the others correctly and effectively.
REVIEWING THE HIERARCHY OF VALUE OF THE PRACTICES (Which are most important)
Remember, the very most effective technique is Doubling at the Peripheries. And that it is ten times as effective in the dark room situation. And that while that is the best bet for restoring optimum eyesight, the best integration of the heart of the re-balancing program as a whole, for overall development of personal capacity, is two-handed drawing (or figuring), expanding one's whole field of functional competence.
CHILDREN (Some Special Adaptations)
Three practices are recommended for children. Children will find juggling fun and tantalizing, and it lets them master a skill and develop coordination -- all at once while working with their vision. Have the child juggle in this way: start with a ball in each hand, throwing it to the other hand simultaneously. It will land in each hand simultaneously, and the child must thus be watching in each direction at once to catch them when they land.
Remembering the importance of the dark room situation in making these Omnision practices multiple in effectiveness, stick little pieces of glow tape intermittently all over the balls, so some are showing from any direction one views the ball. Juggle in the dark until the glow is too dim to work with on the balls. This is not of course restricted to children, and is good for whole family involvement.
Similarly, 2-handed drawing is not only a fun and tantalizing trick and game and recreation, but as for adults it also develops physical coordination and balance, and expanded mental potential.
Finally, the Split Vision Strip. For pre-schoolers, who would rebel against imposition of the wearing of it, let mom wear it too, so toddler mimics mom. For early school years when playmates mercilessly make fun of each other, have the child (who wears it around home, watching TV, reading, playing) tell his playmates it is a "game" or "trick" to sharpen up eyesight, and his friends can try it too -- it being hard to make fun of something introduced in the first place as a game or trick. It is ideal too for any cross-eyed tendencies or lazy-eyedness, etc., lacks of coordination. (Remember not to worry about infants, who must take their time to learn to coordinate their eyes. Crossed eyes in infancy is nothing to worry about.)
(You may want to fold this into your pocket or purse and carry it with you during each day for ready-reference and reminding: it is the outline of what you have to do on a day-to-day basis, organized by the time of day or type of situation you find yourself in.)
MORNING:
Upon waking and arising, do not reach for your crutches. Abandon that reflex of reaching for the crutch without even thinking, which reinforces the unconscious dependency you've fostered. Instead, go straight to your dark room where your glow tapes are set up, and begin the practices. If too light out to darken your dark room just do Doubling at the Peripheries.
THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW DAY and what you will see today. Even though you had to get up earlier to fit in Omnision practices before work, etc., erase irritation absolutely, and begin positive affirmations, about yourself and your life as well as your vision capability and potential.
Again, feel free to merge your meditation and Omnision work, or to have uplifting or soothing music, or to be massaged by your loved one. (If you sit on the potty a long time, instead of reading the morning paper or magazines there, hold your fingers up and do doubling.) When tiring of the dark room practices (4 corners and doubling) or daylight doubling, if you have more time (or arranged more time), do the A-V-X (leave the yarn permanently taped to your bedroom window, conveniently accessible) or read with the V-pointer. Once having pushed yourself to saturation with the purely vision-corrective practices, spend the rest of the time (or take a break for) 2-handed drawing and figuring.
DURING THE DAY:
After your morning vision training session, continue to spurn your crutches and instead put on your Split Vision Strip (SVS). Do not take it off again all day, unless undertaking another Omnision practice in its place (or unless socially impossible to wear it). Even if you must put your glasses on to function for some activity, put them over the SVS, or the SVS over them. Wearing glasses is sabotaging your visual correction, and is your biggest enemy, except the bigger enemy of apathy in pursuing active Omnision practicing.
If you can't get by at times without the help of a crutch, at least try to be using pinhole spectacles instead of corrective lenses. If pinholes are not yet adequate to provide good vision for you (until your eyes are more improved) wear your older prescription glasses which were weaker than your current ones. That will force your eyes to improve in the right direction in order to see through them, but whereas pinholes relax and soothe your eyes, a too-weak prescription lens can cause strain and fatigue, fighting to see with them. Be positive toward the too-weak lenses, lest you get irritated with them, increase the strain and fatigue and resistance because of your resentment: consider the lenses a useful and helpful necessary blurry transition period, and "appreciate" them.
Whether wearing pinholes or lenses, wear them with a chain or cord attached so that you can drop them from your eyes just as soon as you are doing anything not absolutely requiring wearing them. During the day, as you have occasion to read, if it is reading "on the run" just put up two fingers as a substitute-ruler, reading through the two shadow-images of your fingers. If it is reading which is more "settled in," even if you must wear your lenses to enable reading, read through the V held still (or held as an "A"). If it becomes too tiring (even psychologically) revert to the ruler which is less taxing. If and when that too becomes too tedious, put on your SVS and let the "great retainer" do the work for you.
During the day, as you find yourself driving, wear your Oscillating Dominance Reinforcer (ODR) -- which Capt. Hagmann called the "powerhouse" -- and if you require glasses or pinholes for driving, simply wear these over the top of the ODR. (Do not try to wear the ODR over the glasses, as it would dangerously reduce your field of vision!) If you are driving along a quiet country road without side traffic and activity, if would be safe to Watch Objects Go By Your Ears or to hold the wheel with both hands at the top, each hand pointing a finger upwards for doubling while driving, until cars approach.
Or like Capt. Hagmann, try developing your "sub-ipheral" vision by driving under overpasses fixing your focus on the overpass while surveying your visual awareness across your driving area ahead of and around you. Again please notice that a situation of NO TRAFFIC on the road was stressed as a precondition for playing around with taking your awareness off into watching objects go by your ears, watching overpasses as you pass under them, or doubling with your fingers while your hands hold the wheel. In normal urban driving just use the ODR as a practice safe at all times, and of course, there is always the SVS to fall back upon, simply wearing it and letting the great retainer do the work for you.
During the day, as you find yourself a passenger in a vehicle, walking from your parked car to a building destination, walking down halls, etc., watch objects go by your ears. Specifically as a car passenger, wear the Peripheral Vision Strip. If it is too taxing a practice for you, cut it down so it is less wide, in blocking out your visual field. When tired of these practices, including the wearing of the ODR while riding along, again the SVS great retainer will continue passively for you. In watching a motion picture at the theatre, even if you must wear your lenses (or pinholes) to view it, be aware of the four corners. Tiring of that practice and the effort to concentrate on sustaining it, surrender to the SVS great taker-over. Similarly for TV, stake out objects to either side of the set for "being aware of the peripheries" while watching TV, and when tired of that, just SVS.
REMEMBER, OMNISION PRACTICES ARE BASICALLY OF TWO KINDS ONLY: "DOUBLING" AND "BEING AWARE TO BOTH PERIPHERIES AT ONCE." The former requires taking time out to do and cannot be integrated with other daily life activities (practices #1 and #2 particularly represent that category). The only practices that integrate with daily life are the "Awareness to the Peripheries" type, and just in general, in all of life, one can and should now start being CONSCIOUSLY AWARE TO THE PERIPHERIES at all times possible (unless, of course, focusing in on close-point work like reading).
Reading brings up a third and last category of Omnision practice, as epitomized by the simple wearing of the SVS: the splitting of the vision into two, forcing both eyes to equally participate in a job (such as ruler reading does). The latter practices, in this third category, are passive and situationally force both eyes to work together. The prior two categories are very conscious and insist upon awareness of the action being compelled upon the vision (doubling and peripheral awareness). Thus, making us more conscious of our vision, this awareness may generalize into being more aware of EXACTLY WHEN our vision seems to especially falter: under what circumstances we seem to most retreat and tune out what is to be seen.
Omnision is at its best as a ploy to open our willingness to expand our seeing horizons. We have to take some part in this process, for seeing is not entirely an automatic physical act, but a volitional conscious one. Success depends on really wanting to change-- not in wanting to have a change be worked upon one, through "exercises" and external actions, divorced from inner willingness to change.
So, knowing the category of peripheral awareness is the one to apply in daily life activity, do so at every opportunity. Remember our workshop examples of mowing the lawn, scrubbing the floor, doing the dishes, and football games where you focus not narrowly on the play (which may turn out to be the fake, and you didn't even see the real play!) but wide-focusing on the whole formation of players, aware of all internal movements including the real play, wherever the ball turns out to surface.
And as always repeated, when your mind loses interest in the practice, just wear the SVS. By the way, if you are a doodler, try doodling with both hands at once. During the day, don't think only of practicing integration techniques, but take advantage of every break you get, to do doubling at the peripheries, our most effective practice. Even a few minutes, here and there, will help. And carry your Daily Record chart along with you during the day, filling it in as you complete phases of practicing.
And finally, during your human interactions, be aware of the receptivity in your eyes to let feeling flow in and out. Soften your eyes and spirit, let go the hardened protectiveness, blotting feeling from expression and even awareness. And notice, as you get older, if you are hardening your outlook, becoming rigid and less flexible in how you look at things and life, which is the whole symbolism of presbyopia, middle-age sight. Keep pliant in outlook and spirit, for rigidity binds you tightly on every level, including your sight. (By way of review, presbyopia is a hardening, rigidification, inflexibility of the lens of the eye. Not everyone falls into that mold of rigid inflexibility, do they?)
You know that seeing is a mental state, and the best ammunition to carry away to work with this is admonitions to cultivate an inner conviction that you really do WANT to see, followed by that you WILL see. Thus all day long (and even all night long, even asleep and in your heart of hearts) consistently affirm:
I have the innate potential to see perfectly, and now make the decision that I want to accept seeing fully, honestly, everything that is there to see. I WILL look for the Good to be seen in things and feel good about being alive and seeing. Because of this whole-hearted decision to let myself see, I KNOW THAT IT IS STARTING TO HAPPEN THAT I AM SEEING BETTER AND BETTER ALL THE TIME. (etc.)
Then rather than "tune things out," look for the positive so that you want to see, and above all be grateful for your sight. And the more honest you are, the more your vision opens. Remember, this inner opening up is all you really need -- not a whole routine of sensory calisthenics! When you really want to see, you will. Until then, you had better get in touch with your resistances to seeing, or else at least supplant them via an attitude such as the above affirmation statement.
EVENING:
What to do during the commercial breaks in the TV? Having used some commercials for simple Doubling (pencils), and perhaps tired of doing doubling in every one, scoot yourself over to the next room which is dark for the night, and spend commercials playing around juggling glowing balls, as was described in the "How to Practice" under children's practices. Or have two papers on the coffee table which you can turn to and begin 2-handed drawing during the commercials.
If you don't watch TV, go out into your backyard and enjoy the fresh night air and skies for a while, being at one with nature. Assuming it is fairly dark, you could juggle glow balls: again a lovely family sharing-time game you can all join in, playing together for a while, enjoying the outdoors and each other, during relaxing play.
Before retiring for the night, to close your day, even if tired or the practicing itself makes you tired, be sure to do the vital dark room practices, at this ideal time when darkness prevails.
Coming to bed, we can now close our day, and this piece of literature, with a beautiful experience, if only you have someone in your life who will share it with you. This is the exquisite Flashlight Practice. From time to time you may wish to conclude your evening vision session with flashlight sharing. Having done your straining Omnision practices already, in the dark room, you now relax and let go through your eyes in a flashlight imagery and emotive experience, after which catharsis you just tuck in for a peaceful sleep.
FLASHLIGHT EXPERIENCE: Lie down on a mattress, unencumbered with clothing or only loosely encumbered (pajamas, etc.). The guide for the experience, who has at hand a penlight flashlight (the mini-flashlight with a tiny point bulb), is going to turn out the light when you are comfortably positioned on your mattress. Your guide will give you instructions in words such as the following, everything which follows being words for the guide to use: (The lights are now turned off, and the guide sits beside your chest.)
"Let your breathing deepen, and just be aware ... let your body relax and just let go. Feel every part of it letting go. Be aware of your body, how it feels, and be aware of any feelings that are in you now. Be aware in the here and now, and don't let yourself drift away from now-awareness by any thoughts and digressions. Just stay with awareness of your body and your feelings in the here and now. Let yourself relax, and breathe. Be aware of your breathing."
(Guide may reach out and lay a hand on your belly, both to see that the breathing is deep and full, and to encourage your awareness of your breathing, to make it deep, full, and aware.)
"If you start to get sleepy, and lose awareness and alertness, just begin to move your legs gently in a motion like walking. In a moment, a light will come on above you, randomly moving about above you. In a moment, and for the rest of the experience, you will be relating to this light. Empty yourself of everything but the light, and have no motivation except to let the light flow in, and flow out. Because you are nearsighted, especially encourage a moving out to the light. (Or) Because you are farsighted, especially encourage the sensation of the light flowing into you. But do allow both to occur. Let the light in, let yourself come out to the light. Leave your eyes closed now, and just be aware of the motion of a light above you."
(Guide now places the penlight about two feet above your face, and turns it on; the light faces horizontally, toward a wall, never downward directly into your eyes. The penlight is circulated in random motions, unexpected patterns, but never jerky movements for this would cause you stress to react to. The range the light may circulate is boundaried at the bottom by your chest, at the top by your forehead, and then about a foot to either side for width. The light never goes above your forehead since it would stress you to have to look up over your forehead.)
"In a moment I am going to ask you to open your eyes. When you do, I don't want you to particularly look at the light -- do not move your eyes or head to follow it or look at it, but simply be aware of its motions above you, while your eyes are relaxed and still. All right, open your eyes, leave them relaxed, and just be generally aware of the motions of the light." (Continue with this sharing for at least 20 seconds)
"Now, while holding your head completely still, I'd like you to move your eyes to look at and follow the light, wherever it goes." (at least 30 seconds or so) "Now I'd like you to keep your eyes still and straight in their sockets, and let your head rotate to allow you to always look and face straight toward the light, wherever it goes." (again, at least 30 seconds) (Note that as of the above stage, we are now in an Omnision form of practice)
"Now, look beyond the light, until it doubles into two, and watch the doubled light in its motions, still moving your head and not your eyes." (Further yet into Omnision form of practice) "Continuing to do this, increase the emphasis of your breathing: breathe more fully, more emphatically. You will be building up a charge, a charged feeling in your body." (This form of breathing builds a bodily tension the Reichians call "charge," and from this point on, it is emphatically a Reichian form of emotional release approach. This approach is passed on to us with credit for its origin being given to an orthodox Reichian practitioner, Barbara Koopman.)
"Let the charged feeling build." (Guide will seek to keep your attention on building your breathing emphasis and charge.) (... and in a bit:) "Now begin a running motion with your legs, start running in pantomime, and while your legs are running, begin letting out sounds, whatever sounds are there. If there is any feeling that arises to go with the sounds, let it be there, express itself, and be aware of it. If there is no special feeling that arises that you are aware of, that's fine too." (All of this time, you are continuing to follow the light, moving your head and not your eyes, and doubling the image, while running and making sounds.)
(And after a little while of just making sounds while running, and while the running is still continuing:) "Start saying 'Please,' 'I want,' 'Help me,' or any longing expressions that feel like they might want to come out." (And after a bit, as you are getting tired:) "When you become too tired and exhausted to run any more, let your legs fall comfortably. Don't push yourself, just let yourself relax when you are too tired." (When your body falls into relaxed exhaustion, the guide will instruct:) "Now, as you lie there feeling where you are, when you are ready, slowly in your own time, reach for the light, slowly reach out for it, and take it, and continue its motions over you by yourself guiding the light. You have wanted it, and now you may have it as your own." (After you have circulated it a bit -- at least 15 seconds:) "Now take it to yourself, bring it slowly down to hold next to you, lie it on your chest and extinguish it. You have taken it to yourself, it is yours now; you wanted it and you have gained it, and it rests with you.
"Now close your eyes a while. Just feel where you are." (After you've been allowed to be quiet in the darkness for a while, perhaps at least a full minute:) "Now I'm going to turn on the lights, and when you are ready, I'd like you to open your eyes, and just look into mine, just being wherever you are, and sharing that with me, silently, through your eyes." (Guide turns on the room lights, returns to you, seated where you can easily look into each other's eyes without straining your position.) (Look into each other's eyes at least a full minute.) "Whenever you are ready, you may close your eyes again, and just relax."
(When you do so, guide moves down to foot end of mattress, kneeling on the mattress facing you, kneeling between your calves, holding palms against the length of your soles.) "As you breathe easily, I am going to breathe in as you breathe out, staying in harmony with your breathing. You continue breathing at your own pace, and I am finding a flow with you." (After a minute or two, the guide very slowly separates from the palm/sole contact, and the experience is over. If you are getting up, and not going to just fall asleep for the evening, your guide will be there to help lift you up to your feet. The two of you, once on your feet, will stand facing each other, taking each other's hands, and -- at your pace -- start jumping up and down a little, restoring active energy.)
Obviously the depth to which you allow this experience to go will depend on the level of trust you have for your guide, and your mutual recognition of a mutual willingness to acknowledge and value the experience as one of profound emotional potential. You have to be willing to, and want to, go into these levels in yourself, and the guide willing to accept that odyssey. It cannot really be heavier emotionally than a person wishes to go, in that those unwilling to voyage very deeply will not allow themselves to build a very great charge, and without this charge, and the vulnerability it gives to spontaneous release of feeling and blocked emotional energy, very little gut-level (core) content of one's soul will pour out.
Those ready for greater self-confrontation will have the incentive and urge (even if mixed with fear of that potential release) to let the situation develop into one productive of deeper release. Thus you really guide yourself to your own level of depth of readiness for feeling-release and coming into touch with deeper feeling levels. We are not advocating amateur experimentation with Reichian release procedures, but feel that those unready for the making of a feeling connection with their vision will use this technique largely as a relaxing way to come in touch with a peaceful vision within, a pacifying, harmless experience; while those readier for the connection open themselves in a vision-specific way enhancing the commitment really asked of them by the whole Omnision training program.
With regard to your children, you have now seen that people who do not see have a vested interest, deep in their character, in not seeing. If you are to help your children, more than practices and juggling together ought be asked of you. If you can elicit an understanding of their need to shut out seeing, perhaps you can help on basic levels. Perhaps you will find the necessity to take some responsibility for creating those conditions leading to the child's response. This is too large an area to more than touch on here, but it is touched on to be suggestive, to those open to exploring it. If we had space to digress into children, we would love to reveal our insights into how to help the child unfold, to becoming a free, creative, genius. Such as our brilliant innovation whereby babies, loving it, learn to read by about 1 year old, hardly able yet to talk! Or our favorite book on education, "Teaching as a Subversive Activity," by Neil Postman: "subversive" in teaching that the root of all learning is questioning, questioning everything, whereas our schools indoctrinate, to perpetuate our social institutions. The book delves into how we perceive reality, each in our own way, and is useful on an adult level fully as much. Most people are so incredibly skeptical that any program can improve someone's vision, they are so indoctrinated in their lives that the only reality is the optometric and corrective lenses and perpetual handicap. In that dogmatic rut, is but the single expression of a lifetime of indoctrinated non-questioning of how "it is."
REMINDERS, ENCOURAGEMENTS, & CONCLUSIONS
REMEMBER: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR PHYSICAL EYES, THE ONLY THING THAT IS "WRONG" IS HOW YOU ARE SEEING (Through Them).
Seeing again is primarily a decision, or at least an attitude.
The decision that you really want to see, and will see, and are ready to fully look at and confront life. Or an attitude of willingness to let it happen, to let your eyes see, to let the various practices be effective for you with your feelings.
In your daily life, be conscious of WHEN your vision starts tuning out: what is going on in you when this "tuning out" process starts happening? Vision improvement through becoming conscious of what you are doing is so much more rewarding than simply doing rote exercises and hoping for the best.
As best you can, start a whole new attitude toward seeing: feel GOOD about seeing, about WHAT you're seeing and that you CAN see; feel GRATEFUL for being able to see, and for what you are seeing. Hold no sense of irritation with what you are seeing, and no Fear of what you are seeing. These negative feelings about seeing and what you are seeing make you unconsciously want to close out the seeing clearly of that area. The result may be that things get fuzzy, or even painful to the eye. Your self-image is so important. Beliefs that you can't see things clearly. Beliefs that it is safer to withdraw. Beliefs that you could not handle the Responsibility of seeing clearly what is. Above all, try to overcome fear. Fear of "taking in" things and people and life -- seeing after all is taking in, such as we say we "took in" a movie. Don't expect that physical techniques alone are the whole answer. They aren't.
Remember how symbolic we saw that each eye defect or disease is. A natural outgrowth of one's attitude toward seeing. How it was that irritated eyes, or inflamed painful eyes, reflect your irritated outlook, how you are irritated with what you are seeing/looking at, or finding it painful to look at. And how your specific condition of not seeing well, so clearly reveals your character pattern(s) of how and where you do not want to see or look at things/life. We tune out what we don't want to look at, or confront; a mental pattern of avoidance becomes a seeing pattern of avoidance. We erect barriers to protect ourselves, in wearing glasses, or tuning people and things out by blurring our focus. Then as we get older, we have a new excuse: it is "inevitable" with advancing years!
Excuses, excuses. And no taking of self-responsibility. In fact, the industry has now even found it profitable to market the popular pink-tinted lenses for those who want to look at life through "rose-colored glasses." (How have YOU chosen to be framed?) We can all see life as it is when we are ready to. Most people come to the vision training program skeptical that it really will work. (It must be confessed, Vezhon too as a young ex-student first coming to the discoverer, had, underneath his enthusiasm and excitement, a basic deep-seated doubt.) But this skepticism reflects our deep internalization of the inevitability of perpetual sufferance of our vision conditions. On an unspoken level, in our heart of hearts, we are so sure that we are Stuck With It, and our more conscious mind and will ventures forth to dabble a little and see if maybe some extravagant claim (like that we can have good vision) might have some grain of hope in it.
Fortunately, our little trace of hope and effort brings a corresponding little trace of progress, and that is enough to fuel the new belief system, that vision REALLY CAN change! Meanwhile, even accepting the consciousness of vision (seeing being an act of consciousness), approach the Omnision techniques and practices as a fun game of "exercising" your new found visual potential. Take it as a fun and rewarding awareness game of devices to encourage our use of, and involvement in, our seeing process.
For isn't it true that: Above all, our Omnision techniques involve us actively in awareness of our capacity to see, and expand our awareness, hence our sense of vision. They are fun and rewarding because they immediately make us more aware of our capacity. And of course, they are gimmicks to encourage us to let ourselves really see. As we stress in the program, self-change involves changing old habits (and attitudes!) into new ones.
Habits (and attitudes) aren't changed without effort, hence we must first have resolve, and especially have practical resolutions. And we must be consistent in the application of our resolutions. And in making the effort, let yourself feel absolutely positively that it will work for you and fulfill what you really want -- so be honest with yourself as to your readiness for, and whether or not you really want, clear seeing, hence confronting, and responsibility for what you see clearly. You will no longer be able to hide behind having been unable to see something, and therefore not being responsible about or toward it. One can too readily play a game with oneself, outwardly working for better vision while inwardly sabotaging the whole thing, by not really wanting to have to look at things, in life. And get rid of your skepticism. Remember, nothing can work for you if you believe it won't, or can't, or if you really don't want it to, or have an ego investment in its not working or being able to work.
You may be very excited to have discovered Omnision, and thus eager to share if with others, to show them what you've learned. But is that the best way to help them, really? It may be a grave disservice to them. Think about it. Are you most interested in showing off your latest look-what-I-know or do you really care about the benefit to others?
If you really care about another, consider the realities of your trying to take on the role of teacher in teaching this to them: (1) until you have practiced and applied these teachings you lack conviction and convincingness as to its worth, and you cannot provide personal testimonial as to successful achievement in it -- the person is less likely to be convinced of some scheme haphazardly presented by his neighbor, less impressed with its worth, when it is presented by someone unfamiliar with its application or effective demonstration. And experience in this happening does indicate that even a conscientious person rarely can make a really coherent presentation of this program after just one attendance -- even though, for his own purposes, he really understands the nature of it. (2) You do not have the experience upon which to answer their questions and particular individual needs; (3) you lack background information and inspirational material with which to inspire them to pursue this project. THE RESULT IS NEARLY CERTAINLY PREDICTABLE: hearing it from you, they'll probably just give a nod to its being fascinating, or provocative, but not be motivatedly energized from the heart to accept it and to let it change their life. Thus an ineffective presentation can be a real injustice to someone whom the program might help or inspire, if given direct exposure to the professional presentation. Those you want to help will almost surely not follow-up seriously upon your instructional sharing. Only from a real investment of themselves in the formal program are they really likely to take it seriously for their life, and do something about it. Please urge them to attend for themselves and to make this serious investment into it.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE A HARD TIME MAKING PROGRESS, OR RUN INTO SLOWED PROGRESS PERIODS. WEARING PINHOLE SPECTACLES CAN MAKE THE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE.
GLASSES AND CONTACT LENSES ENABLE YOU TO SEE CLEARLY, AND ALSO PINHOLES ENABLE GREATER CLARITY, BUT WEARING CORRECTIVE LENSES MAKES YOU WORSE, AND WEARING PINHOLES MAKES YOU BETTER!
IN THE BEGINNING
Wearing pinholes does not hold you back: the eyes are free to change.
Wearing pinholes does not pull you back from progress you've made when you put them on.
Wearing pinholes is therapeutic in itself, helping importantly to improve your vision, relax you from straining misusage, and to keep you from perpetuating the dependency on lenses, plus attentive to your efforts.
ALONG THE WAY
Pinholes will provide greater and greater clarity, in that while they might not have quite been enough in the beginning, they'll more and more be sufficient for clear vision.
Pinholes keep reinforcing your progress, through their inherently therapeutic effect.
AFTER OVERCOMING NEED FOR HELP WITH VISION
Use pinholes as sunglasses in severe glare situations, etc. (helping eyes to adapt to it) Loan them to others, or sell or give to others. Save them for future additions to your family who may need them (such as for forthcoming children, as therapy vs., dependency on lenses and deterioration)
SUMMARY: WHEN YOU NEED TO SEE AND CAN'T SEE CLEARLY WITHOUT HELP, WEAR THE PINHOLES. WHEN YOU CAN GET BY WITHOUT HELP, WEAR NOTHING AT ALL, AND IF YOUR UNAIDED VISION BECOMES STRESSFUL (EYE STRAIN), THEN WEAR PINHOLES.
IN THE BEGINNING
Wearing corrective lenses holds you back: the eyes are not free to change.
Wearing lenses pulls you back from progress you've been making, when you put them back on. Wearing lenses is self-defeating and psychologically is the antithesis of our work.
ALONG THE WAY
Corrective lenses will have become useless due to your eyes having so changed away from them.
Using old glasses or lenses as interim devices provides a new kind of distortion and pull in some erroneous direction.
AFTER OVERCOMING NEED FOR HELP WITH VISION
Throw your glasses away.
RECOMMENDED USES OF PINHOLE SPECTACLES
When you try the pinhole spectacles, you find that they improve your vision over your unaided ability to see. -- unless you have, and until you reach, perfect eyesight. You can see immediately that "they work."
But the recommendation to use pinhole spectacles is not to trade one crutch for another. Nor is it for any claim that wearing pinholes will improve the vision in itself (in spite of evidence that individuals have been helped in visual acuity after wearing them a while on a daily basis of several hours a day). Rather, I am recommending them as a transition aide.
1. If you cannot function to see without wearing your glasses, but you could get by if you wore pinholes instead, in that they helped your vision just enough to let you get by without wearing your lenses, then notice how much better off you'd be: instead of relying on lenses to focus for you, and to keep your own focus locked in to that prescription focus pattern, you instead rely on your own vision and focus, which can continue to improve (as you do our Omnision practices) even while wearing the pinholes, since the pinholes don't keep trying to re-force you back to the wrong focus, like your lenses do.
2. When your eyes start improving and are too good for your corrective lenses -- which make you see fuzzy, then, because they are designed for worse eyes than yours are becoming -- what can you do to get by, when you are caught between glasses that are too strong, and yet you aren't healed enough to see unaided? The pinholes can help in transition. Unless your eyes are still too bad, even to see through the pinholes, you will find that after your glasses have become too strong: that pinholes help you see fairly clearly until you can discard even them. They are inexpensive compared to going in for new prescription glasses continually, while your eyesight keeps shifting -- and they are permanent investments, unlike the glasses, since all your life you may fall back on them for the #3 use below:
3. Always use them instead of sunglasses when you want to cut out glare and ease eyestrain from nonadjustment to brightness. Wearing sunglasses cuts out 10% of your visual acuity, diminishes color sight and clarity, dims your vision, and are just another crutch like glasses. But sometimes we do go out into brightness or glare which at first is so brilliant we can't make the adjustment to it. If one wears sunglasses, one never does adjust to the brightness, since the light is kept out, dimmed. The pupil remains dilated as if it is dark out, and makes no adjustment to the brightness.
So they do not help us accommodate to brightness, but keep us crippled and crutched in order to function in brightness. But wearing pinholes, by cutting out much of the light, still lets in half the brightness, allowing us to get used to half the brightness first, then we can take them off and get used to the other half. Unlike remaining dependent on sunglasses, pinholes allow the adjustment to be made to brightness, which sunglasses never do. The principle of the pinhole spectacles is so very simple. All glare and brightness in the periphery of the field of vision is cut out, but the actual area we want to focus on and look at is left in much of its original brilliance, not filtered to dim it, nor discolored, or distorted by a glass obstruction. So we get used to the full brilliance of the brightness a little at a time, but having it nearly entirely natural in our immediate field of focus.
(There is a feeling prevalent, too, that artificial light like fluorescent light is not as healthy for the eyes as natural sunlight: the full spectrum. With sunglasses, even the little time we are outdoors exposed to sunlight we are blocking it out -- particularly the ultra-violet rays and the potential for Vitamin D creation in response to the full spectrum.) Furthermore, wearing sunglasses is anti-social, interfering with communication when people can't see our eyes. They can't see us through pinholes either, but the pinholes are brief transition devices we can soon take off when we are adjusted to the light, which sunglasses never allow us to adjust to or to be free of.
I am not encouraging any crutch even this one, every time you go into bright sunlight. Remember the Bates Method of looking into the sun with your eyes closed when you first step into brightness, as a means of adjustment. But there are times of excessive glare: off the snow while skiing, off the water while sailing or fishing, or off the water and sand on a noon-day beach, or driving through a flat white-sand desert, to say nothing of the glare of headlights while driving into thick fog. Pinholes reduce this glare while not clouding over your color perception, distorting images through glass panes, or denying you much of the brightness of unfiltered seeing.
And of course some people never do improve their sight sufficiently to get by in everything, especially reading, watching movies or TV. If you rely on reading glasses for these things, the prescription lenses are training your eyes to fixate all the time in the way that the lenses are designed, even though the rest of the time you don't want your eyes thus fixated. Pinhole glasses allow the doing of difficult eyesight functions without seeking to re-direct how your eyes focus -- they don't mold your eyes into wrong focus, nor "focus for you" like corrective lenses but let you rely on your own focus and vision, by simply cutting out peripheral distraction while you focus in on the book or movie screen. Unlike glasses, they cannot hurt your eyes, since they don't "focus for you." but it is true that you shouldn't wear them ALL the time, since Omnision and balanced eyesight is taking in the whole peripheral field, although it is still all right now and then to narrow down to a narrow focus for narrow work, and harmless if not continual with never use of peripheral visions.
Speaking of watching television, where pinholes give a clearer picture without glare, it is widely known that color TV in particular gives off rays that are non-beneficial, especially sitting up close, as children are inclined to do. Wearing pinholes cuts out more than half of these rays and might be particularly good for children whose habit of sitting close cannot be broken.
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