It seems now I'm working on fine-tuning my lazy eye. I still have hypertropia even though I don't notice it when I do the light tube. When I look into the magenta circle the images lay on top of one another effortlessly, although the lazy-eye image still drifts about a little bit. I suppose that's where the fine-tuning comes in. Now I just need more time to let the brain turn on the lazy eye more and more.
Today is the day that I would have changed filters to dark green, but as I said before, I'm going to stick with magenta for another week. Next Sunday I will change to dark green whether or not I have reached my goals. This is because I believe the magenta filters are stressful to the body and I'm going to need some time to rest.
Saccades were still great. They were effortless. Just like the light tube, it's now just a matter of fine-tuning. I am anxious about the cyclodeviation. I am getting more anxious as I feel I am nearing the end. What if I get very close to gaining stereopsis, but then progress stops? One of the weird things is that I never had the ability to fuse and have success with hidden or object-array autostereograms, despite the fact that I do have some stereo ability. I do pick up on stereo cues to an extent. It is my hope that once my lazy eye's performance gets up to speed that autostereograms open up to me.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
#22 session
This session seems to mark a turning point. When I looked into the magenta light, the hypertropia was almost non-existent. There was almost no need for correction. Just as I predicted, this enabled the brain to turn on the lazy eye more, so the result is that the input coming in from the lazy eye was brighter than ever before. It's almost like the brain is saying 'ok, there's no longer a conflict between what each eye is seeing, so now we can turn up the volume on the other eye.'--the opposite of suppression.
This session was remarkably easy. There was practically no need for correction. I just focused as much as possible on flexing the muscle--turning on the lazy eye. This is something that is difficult to explain. It would have been difficult to explain to myself only a few months ago. I talked about it a bit in previous entries. But as you move along in vision therapy, you'll notice that you are continually faced with new choices for how you use your eyes. You just have to be active and perceptive. Then think about the choices, intellectualize them, and then make the best decision. Remember that breaking old habits in favor of newer and better habits is what vision therapy is all about.
Saccades were, again, the best they'd ever been. I'm noticing a trend here. If I follow the trend to the conclusion, each saccade will be perfect in a few week's time. That is, each eye will land where it's supposed to perfectly, with no need for correction. It's hard not to get excited. I talked with Michael about this, and I mentioned that I really need to tone it down. But it's hard. I'm so jacked up.
This session was remarkably easy. There was practically no need for correction. I just focused as much as possible on flexing the muscle--turning on the lazy eye. This is something that is difficult to explain. It would have been difficult to explain to myself only a few months ago. I talked about it a bit in previous entries. But as you move along in vision therapy, you'll notice that you are continually faced with new choices for how you use your eyes. You just have to be active and perceptive. Then think about the choices, intellectualize them, and then make the best decision. Remember that breaking old habits in favor of newer and better habits is what vision therapy is all about.
Saccades were, again, the best they'd ever been. I'm noticing a trend here. If I follow the trend to the conclusion, each saccade will be perfect in a few week's time. That is, each eye will land where it's supposed to perfectly, with no need for correction. It's hard not to get excited. I talked with Michael about this, and I mentioned that I really need to tone it down. But it's hard. I'm so jacked up.
Friday, June 28, 2013
#21 session
Like yesterday, today's session was quite easy. There was a period about five minutes in in which it was strenuous, but after the ten minute mark it was easy, and my focus was just to stare at that light through my lazy eye, trying to make it as bright and as real as possible.
Saccades went really well. It was probably the best yet. Saccading to the extremes was easier and faster than ever before.
Staring at the magenta light for 40 minutes a day really does jack with your system. The mood swings are very real. It basically pisses me off. This makes sense because it's known that red light triggers the sympathetic nervous system, which is the system that is responsible for the fight-or-flight cascade in the body. Maybe that's because red is the color of blood. The fight-or-flight cascade in response to the sight of blood, averaged out in our ancestors over time, may have proved adaptive. Or it could be a spandrel, a quirk in our nervous system which is a meaningless result of previous adaptations.
40 minutes is a really high exposure, and I suspect that it is very stressful to the body. In fact, I've been sleeping quite a bit more than normal. But the magenta filters do seem to be particularly helpful in wiring up the eye.
I think if I end up mentoring people with strabismus, one of the biggest things I will stress is the use of syntonics for fixing the eye's alignment. This is because measuring alignment is relatively straightforward, and because there's little doubt that syntonics is extremely effective at straightening the eyes out. It seems to me that alignment should be among the first things to work on because nothing else is going to work if the eyes aren't aligned. Granted, I know that different aspects of the visual system are connected, so if you focus on antisuppression, it may indirectly help alignment. Exercises focusing on different aspects of the system do seem to complement one another. So a shotgun approach does seem to be a good idea. But the beauty of syntonics is that it is a shotgun blast of many different exercises all in one.
Saccades went really well. It was probably the best yet. Saccading to the extremes was easier and faster than ever before.
Staring at the magenta light for 40 minutes a day really does jack with your system. The mood swings are very real. It basically pisses me off. This makes sense because it's known that red light triggers the sympathetic nervous system, which is the system that is responsible for the fight-or-flight cascade in the body. Maybe that's because red is the color of blood. The fight-or-flight cascade in response to the sight of blood, averaged out in our ancestors over time, may have proved adaptive. Or it could be a spandrel, a quirk in our nervous system which is a meaningless result of previous adaptations.
40 minutes is a really high exposure, and I suspect that it is very stressful to the body. In fact, I've been sleeping quite a bit more than normal. But the magenta filters do seem to be particularly helpful in wiring up the eye.
I think if I end up mentoring people with strabismus, one of the biggest things I will stress is the use of syntonics for fixing the eye's alignment. This is because measuring alignment is relatively straightforward, and because there's little doubt that syntonics is extremely effective at straightening the eyes out. It seems to me that alignment should be among the first things to work on because nothing else is going to work if the eyes aren't aligned. Granted, I know that different aspects of the visual system are connected, so if you focus on antisuppression, it may indirectly help alignment. Exercises focusing on different aspects of the system do seem to complement one another. So a shotgun approach does seem to be a good idea. But the beauty of syntonics is that it is a shotgun blast of many different exercises all in one.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
#20 session
There's not a lot to say. This was the easiest session that I'd had for a long time. The hypertropia was almost not even there. I just checked it out in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and while it's still there, it does seem to have gone down in the past week. I am snapping pictures of it with some regularity. In the end, I will post all of them together with the dates so that we can vividly see the effects of syntonics on eye alignment.
I didn't notice any changes in saccades from last time.
I didn't notice any changes in saccades from last time.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
#19 session
This session wasn't difficult. It was a bit effortsome in the first ten minutes, but then the control got easier. It definitely feels as though when the hypertropia gets in control, the brain is able to engage the lazy eye more and the light gets brighter and more static.
The saccades are continually getting better, although it does feel like progress is slowing down slightly. But morale is still high. This is still by far the fastest progress that I'd ever had and if I get stereopsis in six months, I would still consider my experience with syntonics a smashing success.
The tricky thing, I suppose, is that the eye coordination and teaming has to be just about perfect in order to have true stereopsis. Depth perception does improve before you have full stereo function, but you only have the real deal when the eyes are on the exact same page.
It's only been about three days that I've started using the magenta filters, but I think I may do another week with them when I start over on Sunday. This is because they seem to be particularly effective. I know that Heather said that she did only ten sessions with magenta filters when she got full stereopsis, and I did notice significant changes once I changed from light green to magenta. So I may break the prescription and stick with magenta for a while.
The idea of suppression is a weird one, because one of the primary things that the brain does with the visual system is fill in gaps. So with people who are strabismic who suppress--which is most of them--they're not just stereoblind: they're half blind. They are only using half of the visual input that's available to them. But it's not easy for them to know this because the brain so readily fills in the gaps for them. Just like you're not readily aware of the blind spot that everyone has until you actively seek it out. There is some peripheral vision, but being half blind really does suck. And even weirder than that is the fact that both eyes are completely healthy. How can I be half blind if I switch over to the other eye and it seems to work completely fine?
It's suppression. It's the active cortical inhibition of incoming visual information. The input is coming in, but the brain is blocking it. So you really only have access to one eye at a time. One of the things that I'm noticing now that I'm getting better is what happens when I alternate eyes. Basically less is happening, because there's less of a difference when I change eyes because I'm using both. Ultimately, when I'm done, I won't be able to alternate eyes, because they will both always be on. I imagine that this is something that would be difficult for people who don't have stereoblindness to understand. In fact, I remember having difficulty having my old vision therapist try to understand the things that I was seeing. And she just had to keep saying 'I don't know.'. It wasn't really all that reassuring.
The saccades are continually getting better, although it does feel like progress is slowing down slightly. But morale is still high. This is still by far the fastest progress that I'd ever had and if I get stereopsis in six months, I would still consider my experience with syntonics a smashing success.
The tricky thing, I suppose, is that the eye coordination and teaming has to be just about perfect in order to have true stereopsis. Depth perception does improve before you have full stereo function, but you only have the real deal when the eyes are on the exact same page.
It's only been about three days that I've started using the magenta filters, but I think I may do another week with them when I start over on Sunday. This is because they seem to be particularly effective. I know that Heather said that she did only ten sessions with magenta filters when she got full stereopsis, and I did notice significant changes once I changed from light green to magenta. So I may break the prescription and stick with magenta for a while.
The idea of suppression is a weird one, because one of the primary things that the brain does with the visual system is fill in gaps. So with people who are strabismic who suppress--which is most of them--they're not just stereoblind: they're half blind. They are only using half of the visual input that's available to them. But it's not easy for them to know this because the brain so readily fills in the gaps for them. Just like you're not readily aware of the blind spot that everyone has until you actively seek it out. There is some peripheral vision, but being half blind really does suck. And even weirder than that is the fact that both eyes are completely healthy. How can I be half blind if I switch over to the other eye and it seems to work completely fine?
It's suppression. It's the active cortical inhibition of incoming visual information. The input is coming in, but the brain is blocking it. So you really only have access to one eye at a time. One of the things that I'm noticing now that I'm getting better is what happens when I alternate eyes. Basically less is happening, because there's less of a difference when I change eyes because I'm using both. Ultimately, when I'm done, I won't be able to alternate eyes, because they will both always be on. I imagine that this is something that would be difficult for people who don't have stereoblindness to understand. In fact, I remember having difficulty having my old vision therapist try to understand the things that I was seeing. And she just had to keep saying 'I don't know.'. It wasn't really all that reassuring.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
#18 session
Today's and last night's exercises were strenuous. They were difficult. But my hypertropia is a persistent little fucker. I was having my picture taken for my license since I'm new to the Missouri area, and they had to do it twice because I was tilting my head too much.
I said before that I hadn't yet experienced mood swings, but that may be changing. In the past few days I've been increasingly having the symptoms of roid rage, but without the roids. I've been getting abnormally pissed off at people taking slow right turns. Granted, some of these drivers really are retarded. Today a numbskull tried to get into the elevator before I could get out. I just ignored it and pushed past him. I don't care. Overweight Asian woman at the counter who can't get out of her own way. I guess it doesn't matter that she was Asian. Freakin' in the way people. They're the worst.
Could it be me? Could staring at a bright red light for 40 minutes a day do this? I did notice the change in mood once I changed the filters from light green to magenta. Maybe it's because I spent two hours at the DMV. Or it could be because I'm up to my eyeballs in cum. Or it could be a combination of all these things.
Anyway, the exercises were productive, I think. Even though I'm getting a lot done, I'm beginning to think it might be a while longer until I have reached my goals. It may be another three weeks, four weeks. Still that's nothing, considering how long I've been doing this shit.
I said before that I hadn't yet experienced mood swings, but that may be changing. In the past few days I've been increasingly having the symptoms of roid rage, but without the roids. I've been getting abnormally pissed off at people taking slow right turns. Granted, some of these drivers really are retarded. Today a numbskull tried to get into the elevator before I could get out. I just ignored it and pushed past him. I don't care. Overweight Asian woman at the counter who can't get out of her own way. I guess it doesn't matter that she was Asian. Freakin' in the way people. They're the worst.
Could it be me? Could staring at a bright red light for 40 minutes a day do this? I did notice the change in mood once I changed the filters from light green to magenta. Maybe it's because I spent two hours at the DMV. Or it could be because I'm up to my eyeballs in cum. Or it could be a combination of all these things.
Anyway, the exercises were productive, I think. Even though I'm getting a lot done, I'm beginning to think it might be a while longer until I have reached my goals. It may be another three weeks, four weeks. Still that's nothing, considering how long I've been doing this shit.
Monday, June 24, 2013
#17 session
This was a good session. The hypertropia wasn't hard to correct. The magenta light is still getting stronger as the wiring becomes more robust. There is no more jumping. The saccades were the best they'd ever been. They were almost effortless. They're not yet perfect on the extremes. I notice that they're not perfect on the extreme left and right (up and down), but moving my lazy eye in that direction is no longer difficult. I definitely feel like I hit the knee of the curve.
It's pretty exciting. After thirty months of vision therapy I finally found something that works. It's weird to think that through all this time it's going to finally happen. There is a concern, however. There is a small scratch in my mind that tells me that the cyclodeviation may complicate things. But my hope is that the brain is flexible enough to deal with it. If this works, I'm going to pimp the hell out of syntonics. At this point, I'm still guessing about three more weeks. We'll wait and see.
In a weird way this is all the doing of Tim Ferriss. I'm a huge fan of the guy. I recently got his 4-hour Chef book, which is a book about accelerated learning that is centered around cooking. In the book he outlines a method for deconstructing skills so that you can focus bit by bit on the parts that matter the most. In one of the areas he talks about interviewing people who are experts in whatever it is that you're interested in learning how to do. He has a long list of extremely pointed and intelligent questions to ask. The main idea is to learn about what they do versus everyone else.
I saw the brilliance in this and applied it to vision therapy. So I started interviewing people. The first person was Heather Essex Thomas. I found out that she had success with something called a 'light tube'. I was thinking to myself 'what the hell is that?'. What was interesting is how little time it took for her to have success with it. It took ten sessions, which I thought was unbelievable because I'd done 30 months of vision therapy with very little success. How could it be? And yet, there she was, fully stereo capable.
So of course that piqued my interest. I did more research on it, came to the conclusion that it was worth giving a try, and the rest is history. In retrospect, it seems rather obvious to do what had finally occurred to me. Ask someone for help who already had success with what it was that I was trying to get help with. Oh well.
It's pretty exciting. After thirty months of vision therapy I finally found something that works. It's weird to think that through all this time it's going to finally happen. There is a concern, however. There is a small scratch in my mind that tells me that the cyclodeviation may complicate things. But my hope is that the brain is flexible enough to deal with it. If this works, I'm going to pimp the hell out of syntonics. At this point, I'm still guessing about three more weeks. We'll wait and see.
In a weird way this is all the doing of Tim Ferriss. I'm a huge fan of the guy. I recently got his 4-hour Chef book, which is a book about accelerated learning that is centered around cooking. In the book he outlines a method for deconstructing skills so that you can focus bit by bit on the parts that matter the most. In one of the areas he talks about interviewing people who are experts in whatever it is that you're interested in learning how to do. He has a long list of extremely pointed and intelligent questions to ask. The main idea is to learn about what they do versus everyone else.
I saw the brilliance in this and applied it to vision therapy. So I started interviewing people. The first person was Heather Essex Thomas. I found out that she had success with something called a 'light tube'. I was thinking to myself 'what the hell is that?'. What was interesting is how little time it took for her to have success with it. It took ten sessions, which I thought was unbelievable because I'd done 30 months of vision therapy with very little success. How could it be? And yet, there she was, fully stereo capable.
So of course that piqued my interest. I did more research on it, came to the conclusion that it was worth giving a try, and the rest is history. In retrospect, it seems rather obvious to do what had finally occurred to me. Ask someone for help who already had success with what it was that I was trying to get help with. Oh well.
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