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From:	ridley (69.212.254.46)
Subject:	Re: Healing myopia on 80/10/10?
Date:	May 7, 2008 at 2:24 am PST

In Reply to: Healing myopia on 80/10/10? posted by Luke on May 7, 2008 at 1:26 am:

I got rid of my myopia a few years ago, long before I found out about 811. Had I known about 811 back then, the process would likely have gone more quickly.

I'm a little averse to using the term "healing" when discussing improving vision, because it seems to me that most problems with sight are not diseases in the conventional sense--although they certainly are annoying--but rather symptoms of a mind cluttered by the habits picked up from modern living.

It sounds like you haven't worn glasses before, and I think that's a great thing. Personally, I had worn glasses for several years before I finally grew tired of them and began to go without them for long periods of time. I began to notice that just after a few days it hurt to look through them again, which didn't make sense to me. I also began to notice that sometimes when I was walking I could see street-signs more clearly than before. Sometimes perfectly clearly until I blinked. My eyes felt very light during those "flashes."

None of this made any sense to me based on what I'd been told for several years by the ophthalmology community. According to them, myopia is an irreversible condition that only worsens with time. My prescription wasn't too powerful, but it had doubled in strength while I still wore glasses to about -1.5OD -2OS. It seemed pretty odd to me that when I felt relaxed I objectively saw better, and I couldn't justify getting myself "re-used" to the strain that my glasses gave me. Motivated by this and the discovery that over half my classmates in a freshman-level psychology lecture of over 700 students wore glasses or contacts, I started doing some research.

Let me tell you, just as there is plenty of misleading information and no shortage of charismatic snake-oil salesmen for those looking into raw veganism, there are plenty of people out there trying to cash in on those seeking an alternative to corrective lenses. These people exploit that desire and give the people what they think they want: "exercises" that make the eyes "stronger". But muscular strength has nothing to do with it. If the muscles play any role, it's muscle memory. Habits picked up over time, controlled by the cerebellum.

William Bates figured this out over a hundred years ago and wrote quite prolifically about it. He was a traditional ophthalmologist and respected member of the community, but when he began to notice that people's refractive errors sometimes lessened, worsened or disappeared all during a single appointment, he began working on a new theory of accommodation to replace the Helmholtz theory, several decades old by then and still in use today. While he never could quite perfect the theory as regards the physical mechanics of eyesight, he was able to help many thousands correct their vision. You can read his book Perfect Sight Without Glasses for free at the website iblindness.org.

That's the one I read right away, and I also read a book by one of his students Dr. Harold Peppard. The latter was published during the 1930s and/or 40s and was written more for the general public. It was quite popular at the time and came with a Snellen chart in the back. The paper the chart was written on has held up quite nicely if you can find yourself a copy.

It took me about a year to rid myself of my nearsightedness. While it wasn't totally a linear process, I was daily reassured as I had many of the previously described flashes along the way. Eventually I just kind of noticed that I saw well, so I got myself checked out and tested at 20/20. My vision is typically around 20/10 these days.

Techniques that helped me most: the long swing, remembering not to stare, practicing shifting, and imagining sight as a process of letting images pass through me rather than my eyes reaching out and grabbing pictures.

It seems to me that a lot of people trying this out want instant results, but they don't make any positive changes to their lifestyle. Even Bates knew that one should avoid caffeine and get sunlight when he wrote his books and articles, and as we here know quite well, the average American diet has become much less nutritious and it wasn't even that great to start with.

I didn't come at it from an 811 perspective, but I did make some positive changes and it helped me greatly. I strongly recommend you check out the books I mentioned (copies of Peppard usually sell for cheap on eBay with pristine Snellens in the back), don't get suckered in by hype, and realize that detractors don't necessarily mean harm, they just happen to have a great deal of faith in what they've studied for many years and make their living on. I consider myself proof that while the present theory of accommodation is tempting to believe, it's got a lot of room for improvement.

This post is way long, but then again, this subject is way personal to me. Had it not been for this, it might have taken longer for me to become motivated to work out. This led to my wanting to improve my diet somewhat more, and I did. Then I realized that to continue improving myself I had to stop consuming animal products, which led me to veganism. Shortly thereafter I found 811. As with my previous experience with vision correction, I'm thriving in ways that "they" tell me I shouldn't be. People seem almost to get offended by this sometimes and tell me I must be lying, that I must not have needed glasses before and that I must secretly be eating animal flesh to be developing my body as I am. But it's no big deal, these days I can spot those people from farther away than they can see me, so I don't have to let them get to me!

Hope this helps.

• Imagination Blindness