Vision is Mental

Vision is not only the physical ability to perceive external objects, something like registering a picture on a camera, vision is also the process of interpreting these sensory impressions by the brain. The process of interpretation is cultural in a way how we interpret the image on retina.

There are cases of split personality when people picked up different pair of glasses or took them off altogether depending on which personality “rules” at the moment. Evidently there can be two personalities and one might be nearsighted while another might have perfect vision.

It is a vast field for study. Bates realized that mental interpretation is important but his accent was on mental relaxation and mental control of the muscles. Indeed, if we knew how to control these extraocular muscles we would be able to relax them and thus would acquire good vision.