I've said it before, but this time it seems things are different. There is a weird symmetry to things.
It seems that the exercise which is getting me over the top (reading in a careful, mindful way using both eyes) is very similar to one of the exercises mentioned in this blog at the beginning of my journey, nearly 12 years earlier (Columns exercise described by me here) which was explained to me by Heather, someone I got to know via Facebook Groups.
Weird.
I didn't do much VT over the late part of last week. But I had been doing quite a bit of reading the previous week due to the vagaries of my job. I was on-call, which involves a lot of waiting around. During that waiting time (and sometimes there are extended periods of it), I would spend that time reading. So... probably reading on average like six hours a day.
Well, that weekend a buddy came to visit me in Austin, TX. We ended up to Barton Springs. Went out to eat. Ended up walking around Whole Foods for a bit. When I was there, I was suddenly aware of how vivid things were, and how much more information my eyes were taking in. It's probably due to the way those types of stores are constructed to grab attention. It was like a sudden jump in improvement. I actually mentioned it to him (he knows about my condition).
It's kind of as though there was a delay in the change of the quality of my vision from all the work I had done the previous week to the change in vision that I have now. The reading + VR is definitely working. Holy carp, it is working. I can also tell from the objective markers (looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the distance of the double images), as well as getting to parity between the eyes. And then there's the subjective, which is much more powerful signal coming in from the right eye. So both have seen massive improvement. Very excited. I'm expecting lots of new exciting news in the weeks to come.
My vision has improved a lot in the past two weeks. As mentioned in previous entries, I think my *special* reading (read: reading correctly) has contributed a lot to the improvement I've seen in recent weeks.
Vision therapy these days consists of reading carefully with both eyes and VR (game called Pavlov VR--essentially Counterstrike, but in virtual reality).
Reading really helps send the signal to the brain to put the right eye to work, and really seems to be doing quite a lot in terms of getting the eyes close to parity with one another (in terms of accommodation and signal power). Then VR helps (I think) with integration through high-power binocular cues. It doesn't hurt that it's also fun as hell.
I try to read at least an hour per day. Then on the weekends, I basically spend every spare moment I have reading--so around six hours per day on the weekends. And as a consequence, I've seen quite a lot of improvement in reading as well as in normal everyday activity. As mentioned in previous entries, reading correctly is a bit effortful (though it's getting easier), particularly when switching to use the right eye (because it's not as strong as the left eye). So I linger on the right eye a bit, to really stretch it and get as much info as possible.
As a consequence of at least a month of this, this has gotten quite a bit easier (though there is still quite a lot to be gained). My reading speed has actually improved quite a bit as a consequence of having recruited another eye. It's freaking sweet. I'm now doing fewer awkward saccades. Yes, this is how normal people read. The habit has carried into everyday activity as well. The double images have come together quite a bit in the past few weeks, especially when I'm looking at collections of objects, on say, a countertop. I can now almost pay attention to both images simultaneously and get details about them and almost infer depth. It is definitely trippy. It is definitely exciting. The reading I do is still challenging, which tells me that there's still more to be gained by doing it. I'm going to ride it out and see where it takes me.
