brain trivia

yea sumtimes if i look at something it kinda sees as if little i dunno cirles of like um it seems clear but i can see the outline of it… and i usally see a yellow donut shape, but if i relax my eyes at it it looks like a birds eye view of a pit or like under ground cave.

I’ve been fascinated by the effect you are describing too, saddleback. I find that you can see it best if you rub your eyes quite hard. For me, I get a display of the most unbelievably intricate geometrical patterns that seem to pulsate and rush towards me. I asked my optometrist about them once, and his answer was that our brains don’t like seeing blank - they pick up on any small irregularities in the light coming through your eyelids, and then extrapolate this relative nothing into something - something ordered, and comprehensible. The amazing intricacy of the patterns gave me the first inclings I had, long before I got interested in dreams, of the astounding creative power that just idles away in our brains. It’s also a good example of how big a part our imagination can play in what we see, even outside of our dreams. I guess seeing shouldn’t always be believing.

yes i see these too, but i think they may b diffrent then what i was describing, i can see the yellow donut most easily after i press on my eyes, rite when i stop and if i keep my eyes closed i will see it. I also think that ur optomitrist was wrong (no offence), b/c when i press on the top of my eyes while keeping them open first it jus looks the same as if i was to cross my eyes, then everything but the center part of my vision becomes dark and like fuzzy with little fast moving purple dots, then pretty soon everything is black wit purple, then i kinda see like like black and gold liquid things covering all of my vision and with medium sized dots of very quickly changing color, changing so fast i cant even see it change it jus seems to be rainbow colored

i no this is VERY hard to explain so dont think ur stupid if u dont get it and dont think im high if u dont get it :wink:

ps i like ur avatar :grin:

thanks, Neo :happy:
Jeff, what you said makes sense, because I don’t think I’ve been able to point out hypnagogic imagery, although I’ve been looking for it. As I’m relaxing I can see large, faint blurry blobs that “move away,” but that’s it. I’ve done WILD a few times, but haven’t seen anything else. So the staticky stuff I’m describing is hypnagogic imagery? I thought because I could see it when I was wide awake that that wasn’t it, but you’re probably right.
What fascinates me most is that it’s particular to every person and seems not to change as you get older… is that true do you think?
salutations, ian

Atheist, I see the same thing you do… for some reason it’s green and red. bizarre! :happy:

by the way Jack, I called you Jeff… sorry. what happened to your avatar? it was cool :grin:

Forgiven…tho ask Jeff if he doesnt mind:)
i dunno about how it changes or not with age.Fact that i know is that i get them very rarely:(which i dont like cuz some people are describing whole pictures of many colours.I envy those:)

I find that I can see my floaters best when I’m looking up at a clear blue sky. I can make my floaters dance by moving my eyes in different directions. I also can see them on bright white walls. It’s fun to try to “chase” them down, but they always seem to move from direct view. :oof:

YEAH! i totally know what u mean! I can make them move my looking from one place to another and then they fly in the direction

those “floaters” are mostly cells that have dettached themselves from the walls of your eyes.

And as for the colourful things, yeah, i get them all the time, i can never actually see pitch black, its always filled with these colours kinda like static, i’ve had it all my life and never thought anything of it.

i saw in a documentary a few days ago about the human eye, the light that comes into your eye gets processed by the brain, the brain then adds detail that isnt allready there, to try and make the image look sharper and more defined, these colours could very well be a by-product of this feature of the brain, your bain sees only black, but wants to add to the picture so that it looks like something, which explains all the geometrical patterns.

there is an experiment that you can do, sit in a dark room and get a candle or something, so that when the lights are off, all you can see is the candle flame or whatever against a pitch black background. sit down, relax and just stare at the candle, dont let your gaze of the candle flame. before too long your brain starts to think there is something wrong with your vision because nothing is moving. then the flame will start to move around and dance. its just your brain simulating movement. pretty cool.

i’m pretty sure that the after images you get from looking at something has something to do with the brain compensating for something aswell.

Yea, or if u jus stare at anything for a long time, trying not to blink, everything gets real colorful, and u have this big urge to move ur eye, but if u dont then after a while everything but the center of ur vision will kinda go black but it will disappear and reappere if u continue, very weird

cool… i wanna try that experiment. must be a candle around somewhere.
i feel like the brain might do a similar thing with sounds…

"here is an experiment that you can do, sit in a dark room and get a candle or something, so that when the lights are off, all you can see is the candle flame or whatever against a pitch black background. sit down, relax and just stare at the candle, dont let your gaze of the candle flame. before too long your brain starts to think there is something wrong with your vision because nothing is moving. then the flame will start to move around and dance. its just your brain simulating movement. pretty cool. "

Perfect excercise to all potheads here:)
ps.Me trying it tonight:)

I see my floaters when looking at the clear sky too, yeah. They look like some kind of amoeba or something. :mmm:

Yeah, i think that Stokesy is right about the floaters being cells in your eyes.
Did ou also know that your eyes have blind spots where the nerve is connected to it and the brain fills in the picture for you? You can test it by putting 2 dots (~3mm diameter) on a piece of paper about 10 cm apart and close one eye, look at a dot with one eye. Hold the piece of paper about 20cm from your face and at some point the 2nd dot will disappear.
You may have to move the page around a bit to find the right position. Also look at the right dot with the left eye or the left dot with the right eye.

I see both the “floaters” and the static. I can really see the static easily though.

Have you also noticed that when you look at a light and then look away there is a darkish spot in your vision, quite annoying really. It seems to me like it is some protective sunscreen for your eyes.

And yet another note about eyes-> I see more green with my left eye and more red with my right eye. Not so much that i see it everyday, but if i try to notice the difference i can. Just wondering if anyone else is the same.

yeah that blind spot in each eye thing is true, your mind fills in the details from the colour around it and from information coming from your other eye. also, about that dark spot after looking at a light, when i was a kid there was a partial solar eclipse, and being facinated with astronomy, not having protective goggles wasnt gunna stop me from seing the eclipse, i regretted it later though, for about two years i couldnt see stuff in the center of my vision, to read i’d have to look slightly above or below the words to see it, i had a blind sopt in the center of my vision that was just a single colour, that single colour was my brain trying to fill in using the colours around the blind spot, if there was a pattern of red and blue, the dot would be purple, it slowly got better as the nerves in the back of my eye repaired themselves, i’m pretty much back to 100% now, but i was very young and stupid and i shouldnt of looked at the sun unaided. i’m lucky i didnt go perminantly blind. moral of the story, kids, dont look at the sun, EVER!

Not to say that it is okay to look at the sun… but i have looked at it before directly. for about 30 seconds straight and nothing happened to me. Maybe it also has something to do with what part of the world you are in and the season? But of course i agree that people shouldn’t look at the sun.

well no one will ever see complete darkness unless they were sealed in an air tight room with no windows or light source for about half an hour (gives the light in there time to fade out completely)

I know that when people say that they have been in a place that was pitch black that the odds are that there was some light, just not enough to notice. But i don’t think that you would have to be in that room for half an hour, as light does move at the speed of light and would disperse very quickly and get absorbed quickly.