I just wanted I say a few things I have learnt about photoreading since I found out about it in March 2005. I am just an average person just wanting to share my story so it may help other people wanting to learn the system.
Please note I have not finished what I wanted to say but will do so in the future.
THE first thing and most important thing I noticed about the program was the tangerine technique and photofocus. Before I tell you what I have learned about these two things I would just like to share a few words about myself.
ALL my life I felt I had no control over anything including my life. I had trouble understanding why I felt this way. I always felt left out even when it came to my family. When it came to having a conversation, for instance, with anyone there was no real connection.
ALSO, I had trouble remembering things for the long term. However, I was and still am an extremely persistent individual and excelled at school. The reason I feel I did well at school was because I blocked everyone and everything out - this was probably the main reason for why I felt disconnected from the people around me but I knew of no other way to remember the things I learnt. If I didn't have this kind of focus I was under the impression the information would leave me. So I had to keep on thinking about it.
I would like to add that I had this overwhelming feeling I was at the mercy of everyone. I felt terrible and I was going downhill at a tremendous amount of knots. It was when I was at the very end of this cycle that I came across photoreading.
TANGERINE TECHNIQUE AND PHOTOFOCUS
MY old way of reading was to focus really hard on one word at a time and say what I was reading in my head. This was the way I was taught to do it and nobody told me differently.
FIRSTLY, I now realise I wasn't even looking at the words on the page as hard as I thought. I was only remembering what I was reading because I saying the words silently in my head. I realised this when I learnt to photofocus.
THIS next paragraph has to do with perspective. I did graphics at school but I'm sure everyone knows something about perspective. We did a drawing at school that had a focal point somewhere in the distance. This was where the objects on the page ended up becoming smaller and smaller so the drawing looked 3D. Now, this was what I was doing when I was reading. The focal point was the word on the page and my eyes turned inwards (i.e. my eyes ended up close to my nose instead of when a person photofocuses where they end up point outwards towards my ears) I can tell you now that this was one of the biggest if no the biggest mistake I was making when I was reading.
IT occured to me that it would be almost impossible to remember anything I was reading this way because I was taking tiny bits of information and adding them all together (i.e.one word x number of words per page x number of pages in book: 1 word x 300 words x 700 pages = 210,000 bits of information) Impossible considering that this is just on book and there are hundreds if not thousands a person will read.
SO this is where the tangerine technique comes into play by putting the focal point at the back of your head. With enough practice it will remain there even when you are not reading. Now if you could just imagine being back in school doing mathematics and learning to calculate the volume one of those 3D cones. The focal point in this case would be the top or apex of the 3D cone. Now imagine holding the cone so the base is flush with your face and the apex is the word on the page. That was how I was previously reading. Now since photoreading I am reading with the apex behind my head the the base is the page on the book (It has taken me time to be able to do this successfully with resorting back to my old conditioned ways).
I would like to say, that at first, the page is blurry because the eyes aren't used to reading this way. But I can tell you over time it does become clearer.
I would like to explain how and why the page becomes clearer. There are two eyes within each eye. One sees with cones and the other sees with rods. One is used to see close objects and the other to see things off in the distance. When we first learn to read we ignore the eye that sees things into the distance and use the eye that sees objects that are close to us. Just like to add that this creates tunnel vision and an is very stressful on the eyes. It is also a reason so many people don't like to read because it is unnatural for the eyes and strains the eyes. There is a old saying, don't look directly at the sun because you could go blind. That saying has so much truth with reading because if you continually read like this you will eventually need glasses because it puts too much strain on the eyes. If you look up from your monitor and glance about the room for a few moments your eyes feel more relaxed and comfortable. This is how you should be reading with the same feeling as looking about the room. If you want to look at the sun you look around the sun just like when learning to draw. You look at the space around the object or word or sun. It takes time to be able to do this but the dividends is worth the effort.
NOW getting back to the eyes and reading. Like I said before, we were taught to read using only one of the eyes within each eye. Now phototreading teaches you to use both. The eye we used read with is now used to see the white space around the word and the eye used to see things in the distance is now used to see the words on the page. I can honestly tell you I am now able to see clearly most of the words in a single paragraph. And I am still practising so I will be able to see the entire page clearly.
My reading has improved so dramatical that I had to share this. I barely subvocalise anymore because I can see the words on the page.
SIDE-EEFECT
I must add that there is one unfortunate side effect that comes with photoreading that I have noticed. Your eyes become super sensitive and as a result turn into slights like that of an asian. Also, your eyes don't look direclty at things anymore and as such if someone were to look at your eyes they would see them veering outwards (i.e. they will see a lot of white of the eye between your nose and iris - the eyes while be looking out to the left and right like that of the cone I describe before. Image the apex behind your head and base being the page and the eyes looking down following the side the cone) Also, people including yourself become not so attractive anymore. Why, because you see the whole face of a person in one big hit not sections of the person face. And you see it in detail. You notice things that you were not able to see before you learn to photofocus.
