You don’t have to believe in magic or be that goofy guy on SNL that looks into the mirror and praises himself with positive thoughts. Thinking positively is just another term for thinking about your goals.
When you get stuck in negative thinking, you’re actually reinforcing the very thing that you think you’re rejecting.
For example, when you tell yourself, “I want to stop doing whatever I’m doing to make my eyes uncomfortable at the computer,” what your mind hears is “I want my eyes uncomfortable at the computer.”
When you tell yourself, “I want to get rid of this blurry vision,” your mind hears, “I want blurry vision.”
The part of your mind that drives towards goals is very simple. It takes what you impress upon it, and your actions thereafter will be influenced with that thought or goal in mind. Your goal will remain in the back of your mind and you’ll find opportunities to take advantage of situations to make steps in the right direction. But if it’s a negative thought that you really don’t want, you’ll just keep seeing confirmation of that thought everywhere. It’s just your limited perception, what you happen to notice.
So you have to refocus your mind on what you want instead of what you want to get away from. Again, there doesn’t need to be anything spiritual about this concept. It’s just a matter of how your brain works. It’s why looking for details, or imagining what could be there, or remembering what something is supposed to look like, is so important. Bates found that you don’t even have to think of a clear image of the particular thing you’re looking at. Apparently any object you can remember clearly is of some benefit, because it reinforces the general goal of seeing clearly. But I tend to think it’s most useful and most natural to put your mind on the clear memory or idea of what you’re looking at, if possible, instead of something else you remember clearly.
If you’re stuck looking at blurry objects and can’t see any details, you are without the benefit of thinking about the details you’re seeing, which would keep your intent on seeing details clearly. So you have to jump-start the process. You have to develop an interest in seeing details by thinking about what might be there. Imagine the blur to be composed of as many details as you can manage, and you’ll start to actually see the blur morph into a scattered details. It does take time, so you can’t give up on it after a few seconds or a few minutes. But your brain is incredibly resourceful and will work at finding ways to make it happen. In this case, the only real change that needs to happen to improve your vision is within the brain itself and your conscious habits, so it’s easy to see how you’ll be successful at it if you practice staying focused on the idea.
That’s what the original name of this website, Imagination Blindness, was all about. It’s the concept that vision problems are related to under-use of your mind’s visual imagery faculties.
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I founded iblindness.org in 2002 as I began reading books on the Bates Method and became interested in vision improvement. I believe that everyone who is motivated can identify the roots of their vision problems and apply behavioral changes to solve them.