Downtown and Terror:

The specific feedback you two are giving me about your beginning abilities is fantastic. I was also as curious as you both are about how to more easily get the outcome I also wanted. I grew a little impatient, desired to play even more, and then just went for it.

I hope that each of you is starting to realize how much fun this stuff is to you. How, when you curiously try something new, you see what happens and easily adjust.

Now, the recommended width of the blip page is 1/2 to 1 inch. The PWMS doesn't say that you shouldn't diverge further, but it doesn't say whether it is helpful to the system or not.

The physical explanation of visual divergence is that your pupils are simply increasing in size. For example, if your eyes were two flashlights, the origin of the beam is smaller when your pupils are focused up close and larger when you are focused in your "Thousand Yard Stare".

When you go into Photofocus, your pupils dilate to widen the origin of the flashlight beam beginning in your eyes. If the beam is wide enough (ie-very dilated), you could take in both pages of the book in one eye's visual field. When you dilate both pupils wide enough, both eyes are taking in the whole book which results in both pages on top of both pages looking like mixed text.

Now, I'm sure the human mind can handle that perfectly fine. However, I am sticking with the recommendations of Paul and the others at Learning Strategies who suggest keeping the blip page at 1/2 to 1 inch.

The point of visual divergence is not "how far you can go". The point is to simply diverge so that your conscious mind won't try to process the text. Like to book says, if your vision is blurry you *may* be still trying to process blurry text. If the text looks like it is printed on a piece of plexiglass but still blurry - then you've attained photofocus.

You both should feel confident that you've attained a skill that probably 50% of the world can't do because they don't yet have the appropriate strategy to do so.

Nice going - Both of YOU!

Good Luck and...
CommonSense

ps- NLP Volume I has a nice explanation of conscious and unconscious processes - particularly the section on signal to noise ratio. If you can get a copy, read that section. You'll understand the scientific foundations of photofocus.