Why does the brain do this?

V

visceral_instinct

Monkey see, monkey denigrate
Valued Senior Member
You know when you are in near or complete darkness and you see millions of little neon lights?

Why does the brain do this? It doesn't create 'white noise' with your hearing or sense of touch, so why vision?
 
Are you sure?

Is it that you don't have it at all, or you just don't notice it, because your brain sees it as normal, and ignores it?
 
If you are talking about visual snow, I have it too.

I can just barely see even in lighted rooms. The only time I can notice it in day-to-day life is when staring at a completely white surface, but in dark spaces it's apparent. It looks like the fuzz on a tv screen, but the "particles" are much smaller. Also, mine is in grayscale, but you seem to have colors.

I think it's just caused by extra electrical activity in the visual region of your brain. Either that or most people just filter it out and don't notice it. I always remember having it, but I don't think I ever paid any attention to it until I started having migraines with visual auras.
 
I remember reading a book years ago that this is a byproduct of hypersensitive vision. (Oddly enough, it's a book about autism. How 'bout that?) I see them as well.

Question, VI: Is your vision 20/20 or better?
 
Lots of people hear random little hisses and noises when it's completely quiet, generated by various aspects of their hearing equipment.

Some even have constant "ringing" or similar sounds audible all the time.
 
takandjive said:
I remember reading a book years ago that this is a byproduct of hypersensitive vision. (Oddly enough, it's a book about autism. How 'bout that?) I see them as well.

Question, VI: Is your vision 20/20 or better?
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Yes :)

I also have hypersensitive vision; I wear dark glasses everywhere unless it's late evening or very overcast, my eyes are really delicate.
 
I think they're just air particles in front of your eyes. Again, this was a book about autism, so maybe not the best book for vision advice. :D Good for you on wearing sunglasses. You won't end up with cataracts!

I remember noticing them when I was about five and asking my mom who thought I was ill. Always have seen them. I've made it this far with them. The good news is you'll live to be at least 24. :D
 
What you see in complete darkness is actually traces of light ranges that we can't fully pick up on (They border our visual range). You'll notice the colours are red (Infrared), Green and a slight amount of Blue. Most of these colours can be used by the right equipment for night vision. You have to remember although you can't see the photons in that spectrum, it doesn't mean you can't see the output of their collisions with surfaces ;)

I wouldn't suggest however trying to run around in a dark room assuming you can see.... you might hurt yourself. Although it's highly possible that after a while you'd get use to low light levels.
 
I just put my hand over my eyes to make everything go black to see the colours.

They were mostly red and UVish blue (you know that blue that borders on indigo like you see from UV lights), and some pink and green.
 
visceral_instinct said:
You know when you are in near or complete darkness and you see millions of little neon lights?

Why does the brain do this? It doesn't create 'white noise' with your hearing or sense of touch, so why vision?
Click to expand...

It reminds me of the "floaters" that people see. The stories abound about kids seeing through a microscope for the first time and diagramming these little critters. Turns out they are blood cells or something floating in front of the cornea or in the vitreous fluid maybe... (read about it a long time ago)


OK, looked it up, discount the cornea part, floating in the vitreous fluid is right. While I was there:

http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/spotsfloats.htm
You may also see flashes of light. These flashes occur more often in older people and usually are caused by mechanical stimulation of photoreceptors when the gel-like vitreous occasionally tugs on the light-sensitive retina. They may be a warning sign of a detached retina.
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Except your not an "older person" - maybe they meant "older soul". :)

Anyway, try googling it, probably they have some explanation... "They" always have some explanation. :rolleyes:
 
I don't see flashes of light though. Just 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or so little neon dots when it's dark, or when I look at a dark surface.
 
I have visual snow in the dark, as I mentioned earlier. In the daytime I can only really notice if I look at a bright surface, or if I see a sharp delineation such as black against white. In the latter case, it looks almost like jpeg artifacts, but more subtle, and moving very quickly.

I also have quite a few floaters in my right eye. Also, If I stare at a bright surface I can see the white blood cells in my retinal blood vessels. I think more so than most people (see blue field entoptic phenomenon, but for me it's not limited to blue surfaces). I also see a lot of afterimages. I think I get more than most people, but I really don't know, because I've never seen through anyone else's eyes.

RandWolf said:
You may also see flashes of light. These flashes occur more often in older people and usually are caused by mechanical stimulation of photoreceptors when the gel-like vitreous occasionally tugs on the light-sensitive retina. They may be a warning sign of a detached retina.
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Except your not an "older person" - maybe they meant "older soul".
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The flashes of light associated with floaters are very different than the flashes VI is talking about. Those flashes are more like a well-defined spot of very intense color (frequently just a grey or beige) that flashes for a duration of between half a second to over an hour.

A lot of my visual phenomena started after I started getting migraines. I think mainly the problem is that I started paying too much attention to my vision because of the intense visual auras that accompany my migraines, and I let the anxiety get the better of me.
 
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