I discovered it by accident. I was in my country house doing some physical work, and I pulled a muscle in my back causing myself acute pain. That day I practiced a lot of long swing (swinging my head from side to side) and I decided to use it to try to alleviate the pain. To my surprise, the pain momentarily disappeared after just a few swings, and also I noticed at that moment my mind felt different, like if I suddenly woke up!
In few days after that I've been studying that state of the mind and I've learned that it's the universal swing that I've been looking for, and that now I am able to enter that state consciously! Not always, but often times I can, and these times are coming more and more often recently.
Here is what it feels like:
- I suddenly feel like I'm awake from "sleepiness". This is a kind of pseudo-sleepiness caused by stare, when the eyes want to close and roll up and you feel discomfort. This "sleepiness" can be taken to its extreme when one looks at the sun with stare. (That's why I think sun treatment is useful -- it demonstrates people what is stare, how it feels, and then how it feels when the stare is gone and replaced with the universal swing.) BTW, it seems that the association of the feeling of stare with "sleepiness" is pretty personal to me, other people do not seem to use the word "sleepiness".
- The entire world seems to be moving in slow, short and easy motion. Sometimes this motion is so subtle that it's almost unnoticeable.
- The entire vision becomes deeper, more vibrant and transparent
- The state is fueled by motion. When I move my head, even a small bit, my mind resonates to the movement and a new wave of awakeness and swing is produced.
- Photophobia goes away entirely. The eyes suddenly open up wide and blink freely, feeling very light and easy, no need to squint at the bright day. I can look at the sun at such moment, without any discomfort and scotomata.
- Flashes of improved vision follow in few seconds, unless I lose the swing.
- When the swing stops, the stare returns immediately. I realized there are only two states: stare and swing, there are no other states. The movement should never stop.
I learned how to enter the state using long swing. I sway my head from side to side for a few minutes, noticing how my shoulders, window frame and the entire world is moving in opposite direction. Recently I've been able to remember the universal swing with only a couple swings of my head. I keep going and swing my head from time to time pretty much all the time, like a Chinese statuette, checking if I still have the swing, and renewing it.
When I lose the swing, it always happens very surreptitiously, so it's easy to miss. It feels like you forget again what is universal swing, and fall into the unconscious sleep. It requires and will require much awareness from me not to lose the moment when it happens and to renew the swing to keep it permanent. But I think it's now just a matter of time to learn to do it under all conditions.
My vision has also greatly improved. In favorable conditions (sunny days which are plenty recently) I have lots of long-lasting flashes, some of them close to 20/20, all through the day.
P.S. My blog has been quite silent recently. That's because I am participating actively in a Russian-speaking community "TRUE BATES METHOD или как ПРАВИЛЬНО восстанавливать зрение по Бейтсу".
