If there’s no light, you should see eigengrau.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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The static yes, the purple no.
That shade of purple seems a bit off, but you might see colours depending on the light going through your eyelids
Does anyone else see 'the ring' when you rub your eyes and then just look at the canvas of your eyelids?
Yes. Its feedback of the pressure upon your eye. Your brain needs to interpret but nerves will be wonky when eyeball is pushed.
the void circle calls to me with its radiance
i will cherish its gaze as my body liquifies
and my mind authors an analgesic static
everyone says this is normal but i've never seen it. am i cooked
Don't worry, friend, it'll all be over soon. You won't feel a thing.
Yes, it's random firings of light receptors from the absolute ocean of potential stimulators for such sensitive cells and sensitive neurons that connect them to your brain.
Your brain does a profoundly involved job at every moment editing your visual input into a coherent, moving picture, but your brain edits out a LOT of interference and noise every moment.
If you really wanna blow your mind and prove it, make a pinhole in a card and in a dark room and look towards a light source. If you wiggle the pinhole light beam across your retina you will suddenly see all the blood vessels that feed your retina. Evolution decided it would put them on the front for some reason, but your brain normally makes it literally disappear for you. When you wiggle the shadows of the vessels, your brain forgets how to edit it and they appear like a mass of floater-spaghetti.
Edit: you can suddenly see your nose. You're welcome.
For that edit you now have to breath manually!
Jokes on you, I've never stopped. AND Good news everyone, you read this in Farnsworth's voice!
You're a mean cow!
If you really wanna blow your mind and prove it
You can also see them by holding a (not too bright) flashlight against your cheekbone and pointing the beam at your eye. The light needs to come from right below and you might need to move it around a little until you get the angle just right.
that's what that is? cool.
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Purple, green, pinks and oranges (that's the blood in my eyelids I think). If I rub my eyes, the pixellated screensavers get wild, which I think means you're not supposed to do that.
@Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe @nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Yes. It's called "Eigengrau" and it happens due to the adaptation of the eye amidst the darkness.
The indistinguishability of dark events from photon responses supports this explanation because rhodopsin is at the input of the transduction chain. On the other hand, processes such as the spontaneous release of neurotransmitters cannot be completely ruled out.
So it's like when a camera doesn't have enough light to properly take a photo, producing a lot of grain. Like when you have a high ISO when taking a photo/video in a dark room, it looks very grainy. I guess the eye is still adjusting its "exposure" if you see some of this graininess in the dark (or when you close your eyes?)
the brain is always trying to find pattern in incomplete data. one of the explanations i have seen is that when our ancestors were sitting around the fire, those who saw the tiger or something lurking in the dark had better chance to pass their genes than those who didn't.
it is why we are seeing patterns in clouds and random geometrical shapes on walls and stuff like that.
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This is just the result of neurons firing and chemical reactions taking place, and it's normal. Personally, for me it depends on my state of mind when I try to sleep. When agitated, I see noise like in your picture. When calm, I see flat, colorful shapes with soft edges that float around and change shape more or less rapidly (kind of like a lava lamp).
Ohhh yeahhhh the lava lamp like ones are cool. Sometimes vague impressions of cyan and red, sometimes propagating in waves. I'm so glad other people are describing it!
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Mine can vary wildly depending on what kind and the quantity of psychoactive substance I've taken.
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Probably just your tuner that's unplugged. Feel around for any loose wires.
Or "upgrade" to digital, the downside to that is that you either have vision or no vision at all if reception is kinda weak.
I see a little “DVD” logo zipping around that changes colour when it bounces off the periphery of my vision.
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how did you take this photo? Small camera through your ear?
They just closed their eyes and then pressed in their ear and anus to take a screenshot.
Wow that's so much easier! I've always had to pee and fart at the same time
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I think it's called visual snow, and it's normal.
Seconding this. It's not incredibly common but it's not incredibly uncommon. Research shows that most people who have it don't notice it until it's pointed out. Drugs and stress tend to exacerbate the effect as well.
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Uhhh everyone is saying this is normal and I don't have it...
It happens to me at night because not only does it have to be quite dark, I audio need to be dork dark adapted. Your pupil is part of your dark adaption and widens in a mater of seconds. However, your receptors also get doped with rhodopsin, which takes up to 20 minutes to full replenish (blue/uv light bleachers rhodopsin). It's like being able to lower the F-stop on a camera like normal, but taking 20 minutes to raise the ISO
it's too bright in the room i'm in currently, but i get it at night
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Better than seeing weird letters and 80 style colored geometric shape sliding around.
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What you're seeing is the inner workings of the holographic universe we inhabit. Your brain interprets the signal as static.
/Obviously I'm not serious....
But you're right.
Only the hologram is produced by the nervous system. Not God's super computer or whatever.
I mean, I guess that's true in a peculirar sort of way in which nothing really exists outside of our perception of it.
What I mean by that is that whatever we see, hear, taste, etc... is merely neurons firing in our brain, processing a signal that it receives. So if we're looking at a tree for example; that tree is just light/energy waves vibrating on a specific frequency. It's only when it hits our optic nerve and travels to our brain that it's translating into something that we call a "tree".
So when the eyes are closed, the random interference pattern could indeed be interpreted as you say. Goog catch. Kind of makes you wonder.
Yeah there's a term for it in Hinduism, Maya.
I've also spent a lot of time and study with Buddhism. Explored a lot of mind altering drugs.
Perception is a map of the territory influenced by karma (evolution and personal experience) In constant feedback with the territory, of course.
But the map edits itself out. Because when a tiger appears on the map we need to run, not debate rather or not there's really a tiger.
This is a normal closed eye hallucination level 1 on this Wikipedia page
Oh shit that's why I can like make shapes and shit when I'm like in deep relaxation
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From m'eye experience. Yes.
You have too much gain.
But yeah it's normal.
Bro is a CRT
for the topic of discussion it might be worthwhile to also look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
1/10 people have it and have no idea it's not normal, my sister and mother too
I see pulsing waves of color, even in pitch black rooms. When I was little they were bright as fireworks, now, depending on the night they're either just vaguely waves of purple, grey, and blue or sometimes electric blue and white.
I was recently reading about this because I discovered there's a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema
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I always assumed everyone saw it. I'm not special after all.
Though mine is gray, definitely not purple.
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Yes, and if you GENTLY press on your eyelids you can make other colors happen.
Also if you stare at a clear sky, NOT AT THE SUN, or at a bluish wall, you may see little swirly things, it's the white blood cells in your retinas swimming around.
(Blue field entoptic phenomenon - Wikipedia https://share.google/MveakONY2KB3QXUUh)
It is hard to know exactly what we see because our brain processes it so much and then we have to put it into words and we could easily be describing different experiences the same way or same experiences differently.
I would guess any light receptor produces noise whether that is a few stray protons or just thermal chemical/electrical processes. I would think for most people the brain is receiving noise very much like this but how they experience it depends on how it is processed. Unless there is some after image from recently staring at something bright, when my eyes are shut my brain gives me an impression of nothing which is almost certainly not what my retina is detecting.
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