Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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Meanwhile the researches of the experimental psychologists have confirmed Ribot’s categorical conclusion, and furnished theoretical justification for many of the practices and techniques taught by Dr. Bates and his followers.
In the paper already cited, Dr. J. E. Barmack lays it down that ‘freely shifting attention is an important prop of vital activity. If attention is restricted to an inadequately motivating task, vital activity is apt to be depressed.’ And the importance of mobility is similarly stressed by Professor Abraham Wolf, in his article on ‘Attention’ in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. ‘The concentration of attention upon some object or thought may continue for a considerable time among normal people. But what is commonly called an object or a thought is something very complex, having many parts or aspects, and our attention really passes from part to part, backwards and forwards all the time. Our attention to what may be seriously called a single thing, affording no opportunities for the movement of attention from part to part, say a small patch of colour, cannot be held for more than about a second, without serious risk of falling into a hypnotic trance, or some similar pathological condition.’ Where seeing is concerned, this continuous movement of attention from part to part of the object under inspection is normally accompanied by a corresponding movement of the physical sensing-apparatus. The reason for this is simple. The clearest images are recorded in the macular area in the centre of the retina, and particularly at the minute fovea centralis. The mind, as it selects part after part of the object for perception, causes its eyes to move in such a way that each successive part of the object is seen in turn by that portion of the eye which records the clearest image. (Ears have nothing corresponding to the fovea centralis; consequently the indispensable shifting of attention within the auditory field does not involve any parallel shifting of the bodily organ. The discriminating and selecting of auditory sensa can be done by the mind alone, and do not require corresponding movements of the ears.)
We have seen that, to be effective, attention must be continuously on the move, and that, because of the existence of the fovea centralis, the eyes must shift as continuously as the attention of the mind controlling them. But while attention is always associated, in normal subjects, with continuous eye movements, it is also associated with the inhibition of movements in other parts of the body. Every bodily movement is accompanied by a more or less vague sensation; and when we are trying to pay attention to something, these sensations act as distracting stimuli. To get rid of such distractions, we do what we can to prevent our bodies from moving. If the act of attention is accompanied by manual or other activities connected with the object being attended to, we strive to eliminate all movements except those strictly necessary to our task. If we have no task to perform, we try to inhibit all our movements, and to keep our bodies perfectly still. We are all familiar with the behaviour of an audience at a concert. While the music is being played, the people sit without stirring. As the last chord dies away, there breaks out, along with the applause (or apart from it, if the intermission is between two movements of a symphony), a positive tornado of coughs, sneezes and random fidgetings. The explosive intensity of this outburst is an indication of the strength and completeness of the inhibitions imposed by attention to the music. Francis Galton once took the trouble to count the number of bodily movements observable in an audience of fifty persons who were listening to a rather boring lecture. The average rate was forty-five movements a minute, or one fidget, more or less, for each member of the audience. On the rare occasions when the lecturer deviated into liveliness, the fidget-rate declined by upwards of fifty per cent.
Inhibition of unconscious activities goes hand in hand with that of conscious movements. Here are some of the findings in regard to respiration and heart beat, as summarized by R. Philip in a paper on The Measurement of Attention published (1928) by the Catholic University of America.
‘In visual attention respiration is decreased in amplitude, but the rate is sometimes quickened, sometimes slowed; in auditory attention, the rate is always slowed, but the effect upon amplitude is variable. Restricted breathing often gives a slower heart rate, particularly in the first moments of attention. This slowed rate is to be explained from inhibited breathing, rather than from direct influence of attention.’
Continuous movement of the eyes, inhibition of movement in the rest of the body — such is the rule where visual attention is concerned. And so long as this rule is observed, and there is no disease or psychological disturbance, visual functioning will remain normal. Abnormality sets in when the inhibition of movement, which is right and proper in the other parts of the body, is carried over to the eyes, where it is entirely out of place. This inhibition of the movement of the eyes — a movement of which we are mainly unconscious — is brought about by a too greedy desire to see. In our over-eagerness we unconsciously immobilize the eyes, in the same way as we have immobilized the other parts of the body. The result is that we begin to stare at that part of the sense-field which we are trying to perceive. But a stare always defeats its own object; for, instead of seeing more, a person who has immobilized his sensing-apparatus (an act which also immobilizes the closely correlated attention) thereby automatically lowers his power of seeing, which depends, as we have learnt, upon the uninterrupted mobility of the sensing eyes and of the attending, selecting and perceiving mind associated with the eyes.
Moreover, the act of staring (since it represents an effort to repress movements which are normal and habitual) is always accompanied by excessive and continuous tension, and this, in its turn, produces a sense of psychological strain. But where there is excessive and continuous tension, normal functioning becomes impossible, circulation is reduced, the tissues lose their resistance and their powers of recovery. To overcome the effects of impaired functioning, the victim of bad seeing habits stares yet harder, and consequently sees less with greater strain. And so on, in a descending spiral.
There is good reason to suppose that improperly directed attention, resulting in the immobilization of the eyes and mind, is the greatest single cause of visual mal-functioning. The reader will notice, when I come to describe them in detail, that many of the techniques developed by Dr. Bates and his followers are specifically aimed at restoring to the eye and mind that mobility, without which, as the experimental psychologists all agree, there cannot be normal sensation or perception.
SECTION II
CHAPTER VI
Relaxation
IN THIS SECOND section, I shall describe in some detail a number of beneficial techniques developed by Dr. Bates and other exponents of the art of seeing. Printed instructions can never replace the personal ministrations of a competent teacher; nor is it possible, in a short book, to indicate exactly how much stress should be laid on any given technique in any given case of visual mal-functioning. Every individual has his or her own particular problems. Equipped with adequate knowledge, any individual can discover the solution of those problems. But (especially in difficult cases) a gifted and experienced teacher will certainly make the discovery much more expeditiously, and be able to apply his knowledge much more effectively, than the sufferer can do for himself. And yet, in spite of all this, printed instructions still have their use. For the art of seeing includes a number of techniques which are profitable to all, whatever the nature and degree of their mal-functioning. Most of these techniques are extremely simple; consequently there is very little danger of their being misunderstood by those who read descriptions of them. A text-book can never be as good as a competent teacher; but it can certainly be better than nothing.
PASSIVE RELAXATION: PALMING
Relaxation, as we have seen, is of two kinds, passive and dynamic. The art of seeing includes techniques for producing either kind — passive relaxation of the visual organs during periods of rest, and dynamic relaxation, through normal and natural functioning in times of activity. Where the organs of vision are concerned, complete passive relaxation can be achiev
ed, but is less beneficial than a mixed state, combining elements of both kinds of relaxation.
The most important of these techniques of (predominantly) passive relaxation is the process which Dr. Bates called ‘palming.’ In palming the eyes are closed and covered with the palms of the hands. To avoid exerting any pressure upon the eyeballs (which should never be pressed, rubbed, massaged or otherwise handled) the lower part of the palms should rest upon the cheek bones, the fingers upon the forehead. In this way light can be completely excluded from the eyes, even though the eyeballs remain untouched.
Palming can be done most satisfactorily when one is seated with the elbows resting upon a table, or upon a large, solidly stuffed cushion laid across the knees.
When the eyes are closed and all light has been excluded by the hands, people with relaxed organs of vision find their sense-field uniformly filled with blackness. This is not the case with those whose visual functioning is abnormal. Instead of blackness, these people may see moving grey clouds, darkness streaked with light, patches of colour, all in an endless variety of permutations and combinations. With the achievement of passive relaxation of the eyes and the mind associated with them, these illusions of movement, light and colour tend to disappear, and are replaced by uniform blackness.
In his book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, Dr. Bates advises the candidate for relaxation to ‘imagine black,’ while palming. The purpose of this is to come, through imagination, to an actual seeing of black. The technique he describes works satisfactorily in some cases; but in others (and they probably constitute a majority of all sufferers from defective vision) the attempt to imagine black frequently leads to conscious effort and strain. Thus the technique defeats its own object, which is relaxation. Towards the end of his life, Dr. Bates modified his procedure in this matter, and the most successful of his followers have done the same. The person who palms his eyes is no longer told to imagine blackness, but to occupy his mind by remembering pleasant scenes and incidents out of his own personal history. After a period more or less long, according to the intensity of the strain involved, the field of vision will be found to be uniformly black. Thus, the same goal is reached as is done by imagining black — but without risk of making efforts or creating tensions. Care should be taken, when remembering past episodes, to avoid anything in the nature of a ‘mental stare.’ By fixing the mind too rigidly upon a single memory image, one may easily produce a corresponding fixation and immobilization of the eyes. (There is nothing surprising or mysterious in this; indeed, in view of the unitary nature of the human organism, or mind-body, this is just the sort of phenomenon one would expect to happen.) To avoid mental staring, with its concomitant fixation of the eyes, one should always, while palming, remember objects that are in movement.
For example, one may wish to revisit in imagination the scenes of one’s childhood. If this is done, one should imagine oneself walking about through the remembered landscape, noticing how its constituent parts change their aspects as one moves. At the same time, the scenes thus evoked may be peopled with human beings, dogs, traffic, all going about their business, while a brisk wind stirs the leaves of the trees and hurries the clouds across the sky. In such a world of phantasy, where nothing is fixed or rigid, there will be no danger of immobilizing the inward eye in a fixed stare; and where the inward eye moves without restraint, the outward, physical eye will enjoy a similar freedom. By using the memory and imagination in the way I have described it is possible to combine, in the single act of palming, the beneficial features of both passive and dynamic relaxation — rest and natural functioning.
This, I believe, is one of the principal reasons why palming is better for the organs of vision than any form of wholly passive relaxation. When the activities of the memory and imagination are completely inhibited, such wholly passive relaxation can be carried, after some practice, to the point where the eyelids and the eyeball itself lose their tone and go soft. This condition is so remote from the normal state of the eyes that its attainment does little or nothing to help in improving vision. Palming, on the contrary, keeps the mental powers of attention and perception at work in the effortless, freely shifting way which is natural to them, at the same time as it rests the eyes.
The other main reasons for the efficacy of palming are of a physical nature. There is refreshment in the temporary exclusion of light, and comfort in the warmth of the hands. Moreover, all parts of the body carry their own characteristic potentials; and it is possible that the placing of the hands over the eyes does something to the electrical condition of the fatigued organs — something that re-invigorates the tissues and indirectly soothes the mind.
Be this as it may, the results of palming are remarkable. Fatigue is rapidly relieved; and when the eyes are uncovered, vision is often noticeably improved, at any rate for a time.
When there is strain and when vision is defective, there can never be too much palming. Many who have experienced its benefits deliberately set aside regular periods for palming. Others prefer to take such opportunities as each day may casually offer, or as their own fatigue may make it urgently necessary for them to create. In even the busiest lives there are blank and unoccupied intervals, which may profitably be used to relax the eyes and mind, and so to gain improved vision for further work. In all cases, the important thing to remember is that prevention is better than cure, and that, by devoting a few minutes to relaxation, one may spare oneself many hours of fatigue and lowered visual efficiency. In the words of Mr. F. M. Alexander, we all tend to be greedy ‘end-gainers,’ paying no attention to our ‘means-whereby.’ And yet it must be obvious to anyone who will give the subject a moment’s thought, that the nature of the means employed will always determine the nature of the end attained. In the case of the eyes and the mind controlling them, means that involve unrelieved strain result in lowered vision and general physical and mental fatigue. By allowing ourselves intervals of the right sort of relaxation, we can improve the means-whereby and so arrive more easily at our end, which is, proximately, good vision and, ultimately, the accomplishment of tasks for which good vision is necessary.
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the rest shall be added.’ This saying is as profoundly true on the plane of the psycho-physiological skills as it is upon the planes of spirituality, ethics and politics. By seeking first relaxed visual functioning of the kind that Nature intended us to have, we shall find that all the rest will be added to us, in the form of better sight and heightened powers of work. If, on the contrary, we persist in behaving as greedy and thoughtless end-gainers, aiming directly at better vision (through mechanical devices for neutralizing symptoms) and increased efficiency (through unremitting strain and effort), we shall end by seeing worse and getting less work done.
Where circumstances make it difficult or embarrassing to assume the attitude of palming, it is possible to obtain a certain measure of relaxation by palming mentally — that is, by closing the eyes, imagining that they are covered with the hands and remembering some pleasant scene or episode, as suggested in an earlier paragraph. This should be accompanied by a conscious ‘letting go’ of the eyes — a ‘thinking of looseness’ in relation to the strained and tired tissues. Purely mental palming is not so beneficial as palming, which is both mental and physical; but it is a good second-best.
CHAPTER VII
Blinking and. Breathing
IT IS HARD to say whether the kind of relaxation achieved through the techniques described in the present and subsequent chapters is predominantly passive or predominantly dynamic. Luckily, it is of no practical importance how we answer the question. The significant facts about them are that all of them are designed to relieve strain and tension; that all may and should be practised as relaxation drills in periods specially set aside for the purpose; and that all may and should be incorporated into the everyday business of seeing, so as to produce and maintain the state of dynamic relaxation associated with normal functioning. I sh
all begin with a brief account of blinking, and its importance in the art of seeing.
NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BLINKING HABITS
Blinking has two main functions: to lubricate and cleanse the eyes with tears; and to rest them by periodically excluding light. Dryness of the eyes predisposes them to inflammation, and is often associated with blurring of vision. Hence the imperative need for frequent lubrication — that is to say, for frequent blinking. Moreover, dust (as everyone knows who has ever cleaned a window) will stick to even the smoothest surface, and render the most transparent material opaque. The eyelids, as they blink, wash the exposed surfaces of the eyes with tears, and prevent them from becoming dirty. At the same time, when blinking is frequent, as it should be, light is excluded from the eyes during perhaps five per cent, or more of all the waking hours.
Eyes in a condition of dynamic relaxation blink often and easily. But where there is strain, blinking tends to occur less frequently, and the eyelids work tensely. This would seem to be due to that same misdirection of the attention, which causes the improper immobilization of the sensing-apparatus.
The inhibition of movement, natural and normal in the other parts of the body, is carried over, not only to the eyes, but to their lids as well. A person who stares closes the eyelids only at long intervals. This fact is a matter of such common observation that, when novelists write about a stare, they generally qualify the word with the epithet, ‘unwinking.’
Movement, as the psychologists have long been insisting, is one of the indispensable conditions of sensing and perceiving. But so long as the eyelids are kept tense and relatively immobile, the eyes themselves will remain tense and relatively immobile. Consequently, anyone who wishes to acquire the art of seeing well must cultivate the habit of frequent and effortless blinking. When mobility has been restored to the eyelids, the restoration of mobility to the sensing-apparatus will be comparatively easy. Also, the eyes will enjoy better lubrication, more rest, and the improved circulation that is always associated with unstrained muscular movement.