Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer PhotoFocus - divergent vs. convergent gaze

Hi all,

My difficulty with photofocus has already been partially covered in the topic "Re: Photoreading with a lazy eye?" in which the person did the dictionary test but could not focus properly and could not see the 3D messages in the random dot stereogram.

This person has a lazy eye (amblyopia), which is similar to my problem - my right eye is stronger than my left and I wear glasses to correct this issue.

The answer given to this person is to use the soft gaze with the imaginary X-technique and to continue with the course.

The problem is, Alex ViefHaus (who answered the above post) also says that when you use the X technique you will eventually see a page blip with focused text in the blip and blurred text in the side pages as he describes on his website:

http://www.photoreading.com.au/seeing.html

I am using his technique and I am not getting the right focus at all. I am also not seeing the blip.

There is a difference between a CONVERGENT (or squinting) gaze and a DIVERGENT gaze (eyes straight ahead looking through the book).

Here is what I find interesting:

1) I am able to see 3D pictures with COVERGENT or squinting gaze. I look at the tip of my nose first to squint the eyes and using focusing techniques I can look up to a set of stereo pictures and see a perfect 3D picture in the middle of the blurred pictures left and right. Here is an example of what I am talking about

http://www.neilcreek.com/2008/02/28/how-to-see-3d-photos/

2) I can see the cocktail weener effect with my fingers, but I cannot replicate this with a book. When I do somehow (with much struggling) get a blip with a book using the squinting / convergent techique in 1) above, the blip is unstable and constantly changing size and focus, and sentences from the two pages are meshing and merging into the centre and are in constant motion. This really disorients me and hurts my eyes.

3) I CANNOT, no matter how hard I try, see the 3D-message in a random dot stereogram even if I get the same effect with the squares that I do with the 3D pictures (likely due to using CONVERGENT and not DIVERGENT gaze).

4)When I draw a line down the middle of a page and draw two fingers touching and suggested in the manual, I can only get the coorect effect if I focus my eyes on an object behind the page, but when the page fills my view I cannot maintain a divergent gaze - the blip formed by the two lines keeps moving and swaying - and disappearing back into a single line focus with no blip.

Bottom line - does this mean that I cannot photoread?

Jason

I don't think that the uniqueness of your vision means you will not be able to photoread. Possibly getting hung up on whether or not you can read 3D pictures can get in the way of relaxing and going with the photoreading flow. All the information about the blip page, seeing the cocktail sausage etc., are just suggestions to help, if they don't work for you, so what? Experiment, relax your gaze, let go of worryng about different gazes and see what happens.

Jodi

I agree with Jodi. I have no problem seeing stereograms or the blip page of the manual but I have difficulty seeing the blip page in a normal-size book. So, I don't bother with it. I just do the imaginary-X technique and soften my gaze as I photoread. Softening your gaze is something you can practice wherever you are, like walking down the street and seeing what you can spy out in peripheral vision.