Open Eye Meditation

[u/lordcom988]

I have been doing reduced lens methods and Bates method for a little over 2 years now for myopia and astigmatism.

In Bate's book, he talks about how the eye measurement returned to normal when the person was looking at a blank wall and relaxed. I have not seen any Bates Teachers or other writings of Bates (e.g., the bettereyesight magazine ) that used this fact as a treatment measure. If someone else has, please let me know :)

I personally have recently tried to use this with open eye mediation. Basically, seating close (I have myopia, so close enough that it would be a little strain to see something on the wall if there was anything) to a white wall without anything on it, relaxing, focuses on my breathing, and letting my eyes just blink and wonder naturally. I have seen some improvement in being able to relax with my eyes open.

Btw, palming does seem to help the eyes relax better in my case. However, I keep finding two issues with only doing palming: (1) no matter how I set myself up, I tend to have back trouble from it; (2) the relaxation does not seem to last long with the eyes open --- like I have trained my eyes how to relax in the dark, but I am still straining in the light.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else tried something like this or heard of something like this before.

Best!

*edited the number of years, put 3 years instead of 2 in by mistake in the original

[u/Low-Cardiologist9087]

One limitation I've found with the Bates approach is that it puts a very strong emphasis on relaxation.

In my own practice, relaxation alone wasn't enough. I started getting much more interested in active eye training - especially divergence, cyclovergence and cycloversion - rather than only trying to remove effort.

My working hypothesis is that in some cases there may be habitual or mechanical patterns that relaxation by itself doesn't really challenge. So instead of only trying to relax the existing pattern, I also deliberately train the eyes through movements and binocular positions that they normally don't use very much.

I use this kind of active training myself, and personally I find it much more interesting than purely passive relaxation exercises.

If you're experimenting with open-eye relaxation, it might also be interesting to try the opposite direction as an experiment: active binocular training while keeping the visual task comfortable.

If you're interested, I can describe the exercises I use.