Strobe lights & blobs

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There was something I was wondering about. When you go to sleep at night, and your still awake, but your eyes are closed and immersed in total darkeness, does it appear to be total black, or do you have all kinds of things taking place that you still see?

Let me explain what happens when I go to sleep. For as long as I can remember, I have never seen "total" darkness, per say. When I hit the pillow and close my eyes, I get treated to a crazy show all my own underneath my eyelids. This will happen anytime I close my eyes, and not just when I try to sleep, but it's most noticable at night since there's no outside light to drown out anything. I typically will have four different things going on as my eyes are closed.

- Backround noise: This is comprised of a green colored fixed noise pattern that slowly shimmers around. Sometimes I can see it flickering too.

- Black Holes: Every now and then, A Dark spot will form, a pinprick of intense darkness that usually forms in my peripheral vision, and will last a few seconds before fading out, around these are halos of darkness where everything in the halo gets blacked out. I've noticed these during the daytime, thus why I call them black holes. Sometimes these spots will form in a rapid succession and rotate around my field of view in clockwise manner.

- Strobe lights: When my eyes are closed and immersed in darkness, I will see these form on ocassion. Usually I will see a flashing begin to start in one corner of my vision, which will then spread out across my entire field of view before fading out and then fading in, over and over again. The flashing usually occurs at a rate of 30 to 60 Hz, and sometimes during the strobing, the backround will become very bright, like someone turing the brightness up all the way on a TV that was displaying a black picture.

- Blobs: These are the most wild of all things I see at night. A green blob will form at some place in my field of view, then slowly morph itself and grow in size until it fades out. The blob will then reform and morph out in the same pattern again. this often happens 5 or more times until a new pattern forms. The most intense blobs that I see will have purple centers to them.

Thats the cast of four characters that entertain me at night, and since I'm not good at closing out things, I'll simply ask if anyone else here experiences a similar thing at night, and if this in just and aspie thing, or if NT's see these too?

I have one of them : strobe. But what an intensity, very often it keeps me from falling asleep. I sometimes also have color, a bit like Boreal aurora. Some other time its sounds, and sometimes its both.

I believe these are known as "floaters". More information on them at the link below:
http://www.eyefic.com/efic1.htm

I often see coloured blobs and patterns behind my eyes, I think it's pretty normal, not just an aspie thing.

(Wow! just learnt the funny twisted vermicular thing I see all the time is called "eye floater"!)

Scoot, I see lights and colored blurs when when I close my eyes.
It doesn't affect me when I try to fall asleep, because I keep my eyes slightly open when I want to sleep. And I fall asleep very easily and quickly.

Heh, I see those too and used to wonder if I was seeing things. Guess not. You learn something new everyday! (but you forget 80% of the new information you learn in the day; at least if you're NT)

I see what you are calling blobs - and I know what causes them - it is the pigment in the rods and cones of your eyes moving around and fizzling out - you can get a really good example of this effect if you (not too hard, of course) close your eyes and press on them - that makes all the little rods and cones fire at once and you get that bright light thing . . .

I don't know if NTs experience this - I'll have to ask . . .[/list]

I'm not sure what that funky little code is at the end of my last message - sorry - I know not from wence it came . . .

no, floaters are something else.

open your eyes, look at the clear blue sky to see them.

I see lights when I close my eyes, I think everyone does. It's something to do with the light in the retina. If you stare at light bulbs they can hang around for ages, changing colours when you open and close your eyes.

I don't reccomed it though.

I was intrigued by Scoots5012's question and checked it this night. What I see are swirling lines, circles and various shapes, occupying my whole field of view, moving and morphing very fast. There are also dark and light blobs, spots, flying stars, sparkles, filaments, triangles etc. The background is in different shades of gray, changing luminosity slowly. On the whole this show resembles the web of galaxy clusters that fills the universe, only more dense and dynamic. I was unable to determine the color of these objects. Some of them persisted for a couple of seconds after I opened my eyes.

I found they are called "phosphene".

From:
http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/Phosphene

"Phosphenes are signals from the neurons of the retina to the visual cortex of the brain which are interpreted by the brain as lights and visual patterns, but are not caused by visual light. They can be produced by neurons randomly firing (similar to what causes muscle twitches) and a variety of other causes, including pressure to the eyeball and (less commonly) various diseases of the retina and nerves. Phosphenes are most easily noticed with the eyelids closed, or in a darkened environment. "

I notice if I close my eyes for a long time, I can see lots of tiny dark blue dots.

this sounds really, really cool.

is it disturbing, or something you can enjoy?