A clear flash.
To get to the clear flash you first need a prescription that doesn’t create too much clarity / focal plane change. Then you have to work out active focus, to create a visual environment where your eyes are fully challenged to create a clear image. The result tends to be the double vision effect, where the individual eye and both eyes together don’t quite create one single clear image, but instead multiple, slightly misaligned ones. Happens a lot, as you already know if you looked through participant experiences.
Sasha describes her own experience in the forum:
I am writing this down maybe more as a sort of journal to myself, so that I can compare in some weeks or months time.
I have been walking outside without glasses for the last two days, and more or less think i found a “method” for fusing my double images. just a note, my double vision is heavy, maybe something like this
well not on my hand, but on objects that are a further away. also it is a vertical, not horizontal overlay, but i could not find a good image for that. for example when i look at street lights, i literally see them as two-headed, one head above the other.
i have noticed early on that they sometimes spontaneously fuse for a flicker of a second, and the image is incredibly clear (relative to my usual walking in the fog). i don’t know if this is covered in the course, but until now my approach was to focus on one image and hope the other will fade or whatever. now i’ve tried to do the opposite, to get the afterimage as clear as possible, so that i see for example two very clearly and distinctly defined heads of a street light. i’ve noticed that as soon as i get them both clear, they almost always fuse, except when i am tired. the resulting image is comparable to a good diopter better than what i see normally (think it’s much better than putting on the -1 differential prescription).
initially i could hold it for probably less than a second, but yesterday and today i was able to walk a few steps with a cleared image.
so at the moment my vision-walks consist of a constant cycle of fusing-doubling in a matter of seconds. the image is never static, it is a constant pulsation from doubles to clear doubles to blurred doubles or brief fusion, back to huge and indistinct doubles again, and so in in waves and fluctuations that take seconds.
i can only do this on very distinct and regular objects, e.g. street lights, roof antennae, cables against the sky, etc. it does not work on more complex shapes, or indoors. it seems to be easier when walking.
i sort of assume it’s good and my goal for the moment should just be to make the fused moments either longer or more frequent (though they are already frequent, initially i got maybe one or two per 1 hour walk, now it’s maybe a dozen brief ones and 2 long ones where “long” = several seconds).
i have to say that the first time it happened i was completely blown away and thought what on earth is this. then again, yesterday, when for the first time i could hold it for a long enough period to really analyse the image (and e.g. read easily a license plate like 4-5m away or so, impossible at -3.5 diopters), i really thought this is completely insane. it was a sunny day and i was fit, so i assume i can’t hold this all the time, but still it proved me that the physical set-up of my eyes, even as it is now, can do much more than it is used to. crazy.”
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Great, right?
The only issue with Sasha’s efforts is the amount of work her brain has to do to resolve those double images. She is working from a three diopter deficit, so those images are going to be pretty challenging for her brain to resolve. Her eyes will be working hard trying to create a better image, and her brain is going to be working hard trying to make sense of the signals it receives.
Lots of stimulus happening there. But really, it’s more work than she’ll be able to benefit from. Why?
Adaptive stimulus. If you challenge your body for more than it has to give without effort, and if you do this repeatedly, your body will adapt. If you run to the park every day and end up out of breath, eventually your body will make the necessary adjustments to be able to perform that run without taxing the system. Do you need to run to the park five times a day to get the effect? Of course not! You just need *some* challenge. There will be a limit to the rate of adaptation your body can perform.
That limit with eyesight is closer to a single diopter at most, rather than three (though this depends on the overall degree of myopia to a large extent). Because of this I have my clients try 20/40 to 20/60 prescriptions and look at how they perform in getting clear vision from there. If you can do that, you get about all the stimulus your body will be able to adapt to. Much less work than that three diopter deficit, and all the same benefits.
For my full response in the thread, head over here.
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If this post helped you, help me out on a burning question on my mind: Do I / we need to be more social? As in, do you lie in bed sleepless at night, wishing for a Twitter feed of eyesight related bits? Do you miss Jake & co. dearly and dream of Facebook post things in your feed? Should there be Instagram moments of me torturing my dear clients in the name of eyesight health? What else … Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, podcasts?
My read of the current situation is that you possibly could care less about all that social media stuff. I somewhat hope so, since I don’t foresee myself sneaking around the optic shop in the mall with a GoPro on a selfie stick, interviewing optometrists.
Head over to the thread I set up, and let me know. Or send a quick note via the contact form. Suggestions on how to make this site better, more engaging, more helpful, we really do need your big brains to share ideas.
Cheers,
– Jake