Purpose: To allow you to gain more conscious control over your focusing mechanism. Also, to allow an investigation into how plus and minus lenses affect the way you see space and how they affect the way you feel.

Materials: Lens provided by therapist Patch

Procedure, Level I:

1. Patch one eye.

2. Using the minus lens given to you by your therapist, look at some printed material held about 16″ away. The lens should be held directly in front of your eye at the same distance and position it would be in if it were set into a pair of eyeglasses.

3. When you place the lens in front of your eye, you should notice a blur when it is first placed there, then the print should become clearer after the eye adjusts to the lens. Now take the lens away for several seconds and allow the eye to change back to just looking at the print with no lens.

4. Place the lens in front of the eye again, and as the image begins to get clearer, see if you can FEEL the eye doing anything. Repeat the process over and over until you are aware that as the “picture” changes, your eye is physically doing something to make it change. It may take a while, but work until you are able to tune in to the change of feeling in the eye. If you get it, record this fact on your homework sheet.

Procedure, Level II: 5. Next, bring the lens in front of the eye but don’t try to clear it. The eye will naturally want to make the image clear, but by concentrating on how it feels, you can keep your focus where it was before you brought in the lens. Try this several times until you are able to keep the image blurry when you bring the lens in.

Procedure, Level III: 6. Next, look at the print again with the lens. See it blur, then get clearer. Now, keeping the lens in place, see if you can get the print to blur back again to the way it was when you first put the lens in front of your eye. Try looking hard, looking soft, looking close, looking far, etc. until you are able to do it and have a feel of just what you are doing to make it happen. Experiment to see how much of a blur you can produce and then still get it to clear.

Procedure, Level IV: 7. This time, insert the lens and clear the letters. Think about how it feels to have your focus clear inside the lens. Think about keeping your focus where it is, even when the lens is taken out. Take the lens out and try to keep your focus where it was. The print will be blurry if you are able to keep your accommodative position the same. Slide the lens back in and see if it is still clear inside the lens. Repeat this activity until you are able to keep the image blurry outside the lens, but clear inside it.

Procedure, Level V: 8. To clear the image in the lens, you are focusing either in front of or behind the actual print. Practice looking hard and soft, focusing near and far, until you are able to make the print blurry. Bring in the lens and see if the image is instantly clear. Practice adjusting where you are focusing until you are able to have the image instantly clear when you bring in the lens.