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What do you see when you close your eyes?

TheNeonLobster

20:26 / 26.07.03

I have serious trouble sleeping. Takes me FOREVER to fall asleep. Anyway, last night, my eyes were closed and for the first time, I questioned something;for as long as I can remember, I don't see blackness. I mean, sure, it's dark, but there is definatley (sp?) "light." The light forms "objects" and they move.

It's kind of like seeing stars. Like when you apply pressure to your eyes for a while, and then little "stars" appear. Except these aren't stars.

I've tried concentrating on them, in order to figure out what they are, but to little avail.

I've got some ideas on what they might be (spirits, other times, other realities), but I'd like to know what all of you think. Do you have the same experience?

Saint Keggers

20:39 / 26.07.03

I read somewhere years ago that its just the receptors in your eyes ramdomly firing as they attempt to adjust to total darkness..or something like that... its not exactly mystical or anything.

TheNeonLobster

20:41 / 26.07.03

Damn, I was hoping to avoid the medical library... off I go.

Papess

20:46 / 26.07.03

Can you control what forms are taking shape?

eye landed

23:40 / 26.07.03

I know what you mean. I was having trouble sleeping just last night. They definitely form geometric patterns, which suggests they are largely self-constructed.

May Tricks: yes, but I can't stop them from being dim and spooky. Time to practice!

Spyder Todd 2008

02:18 / 27.07.03

I have the same thing, have had it for years. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. I try to focus on what it's saying to me, on what it means, if it's trying to warn me of something, etc.

23chao5

06:11 / 27.07.03

Strange, I've often asked people this question before.

After a few initial psychedelic experiences these little lights have become more visible for me during normal vision... they sit like an invisible "film" over everything in my field of vision... and become brigther when I focus on them, and if I have say a black object to look at or sometimes just the right level of concentration the little lights become swirling little blobs that look almost like cells or disney-drawn cartoon in neon-green and purple. That's the best I can describe it. It sounds strange, I know, but it's not ever harmful or distracting, that's the odd thing, I can either choose to notice them or not, like pixels on a screen.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:37 / 27.07.03

I think everyone gets this in one form or another. I'm not entirely sure what the technical term is for the images you see when you close your eyes, but I belive they are generally put down to phantom data. This could arise either from the random clunking of the optical machinery, or from stuff thrown up by a visual cortex that's (figuratively speaking) got bored and started to doodle.

The images you see when you're in the state between sleeping and waking, on the other hand, are termed hypnagogics. A definition of the word can be found here. Some info on the hypnagogic state as it relates to other sleep disorders such as sleep paralysis can be found here.

Trying to manipulate the images you see is very good discipline. It will help you develop your visualization skills.

Warewullf

19:25 / 27.07.03

Also, they'll help you to Lucid Dream.

If you can form real things out these lights, then manipulate them, before you know it you'll have fallen asleep and entered a Lucid Dream without losing awareness. Neat skill to have!

Deadwings

03:31 / 28.07.03

I find that if I concentrate on the geometric shapes and unfocus to the point of occular agony they rarify into a twisting tunnel. Like that scene from the end of The Abyss, just as fast and trippy, but more dark.

Papess

11:32 / 28.07.03

Deadwings: That is exactly what I used to see when I first realised this stuff was there. A tunnel type thing, which changed into a river, then the riverbanks were lined with thousands upon thousands of skulls...

I wasn't scared, even though I was pretty young - about fifteen. I did decide I needed to learn how to change the scenery and that is when I recognized that there was a 3-D nature to these visions. It was like stepping into a holograph. There was depth as well. I could move from the foreground to the midground, but the background (the horizon, I mean) I could never reach...hehehe

Lionheart

13:51 / 28.07.03

Ahem..No topic abstract! If nobody objects I'll stick in a topic abstract in 24 - 48 hours.

Anyways, the latest I've heard about these "images" is that they were visual representations of neurons firing. That's just a theory though so nobody knows exactly what those things are but we all experience them (unless ofcourse you've been blind from birth or early childhood.) I remember somebody suggesting that one can eventually learn how to "read" one's mental processes by observing the "images" but that was just a theory.

Also the state in-between sleeping and waking is NOT the hypnagogic state but the hypnopompic state. The hypnogogic state is the state in-between waking and sleeping.

In other words:

Hypnagogic- right before you go to sleep

Hypnopompic- right as you're waking up

Quantum

13:54 / 28.07.03

You can see the scars on your retina, afterimages and hallucinations, and the random firing of neurons in your visual cortex all layered between your mind and your eyelid. Then on top of that you can 'project' your imaginings and hynagogics etc, so really it's a surprise if it's ever dark.
I have a theory a lot of magical perceptions can be tracked down to the 'afterimage' layer, where psychedelic hallucinations occur and the blotches when you press your eyes are. Like focussing on foreground or background, or looking at a 'magic eye' picture, you can practice seeing these things. Then you can glimpse all those spirits etc.

Quantum

14:05 / 28.07.03

[aside]Aha! So a *psychopomp* (e.g. lucifer) guides you from life to the afterlife like a hypnopomp (a hynopompic vision) guides you from sleeping to waking..[/aside]
The neurons firing just give you little flashes or brief shapes, anything more is your brain trying to construct patterns without enough data. The crap floating about in your aqueous humour is only visible when you look at something bright, so you won't see it in the dark, and afterimages fade pretty quick so mostly you're seeing your brain trying to make visual sense of near darkness.
In a way looking at the inside of your eyelid is like looking at a blank white wall- you get to see the stuff you normally look through, like looking at a window instead of through a window.

Spyder Todd 2008

01:35 / 29.07.03

I'd like to pause for a moment and say that I'm completely lost as to whether this thread now belongs here, the Head Shop, or the Laboratory...

gravitybitch

02:38 / 29.07.03

I'm guessing Lab, but I'm happy if it stays here...

Meanwhile, I just put several things together and came up with a why? I'm predominantly visually oriented, think visually and speak with my hands, have great space-filling skills, and all that... BUT when I go into a hypnagogic state, I *don't* see things but I hear stuff.

Anybody got any ideas as to why this might be?

Lionheart

15:39 / 29.07.03

I get the same thing. It's like I'm surrounded by music. I occasionally catch myself falling asleep on the train and when I realize that I've been nodding off I also realize that I've been hearing music. It's usually large, powerful orchestral music but every once in a while it's some pop song. It's like having a cd player and a composer living in your head.

FinderWolf

17:48 / 29.07.03

I often tried to manipulate these images and colors when I was younger. As I recall, I had good results changing the colors and geometric shapes that would appear. In particular, I often saw lots of geometric shapes, sort of like a Spirograph. Very interesting patterns and such. I think this definitely must have some sort of spiritual or magickal connection. I think I also noticed that if you put even the slightest pressure on your eyes with your fingertips while looking at these shapes (with your eyes closed, of course), the shapes would change immediately at the touch of your fingers.

22:03 / 30.07.03

(nonsense)I can't play first person shooter computer games or I see (I mean really see, not just imagine) nothing but running down corridors when I close my eyes, and I can't get to sleep. Same thing happens with that awful old maze screensaver which came with Windoze NT.(/nonsense)

isz, have you considered that perhaps your conscious, rational processes are visual, and usually overwhelm your auditory function, which has a chance when your rational processes head off to sleep and your visual centers follow? Perhaps your irrational, instinctive processes are more closely connected to your auditory functions. Just a thought...

(more nonsense)When I was a child, I thought the spherical objects I could see when I looked at a blank white field, or the sky, were the ghosts of dead soap bubbles.(/more nonsense)

Spyder Todd 2008

00:45 / 31.07.03

Ha! Entity, I had a similar problem! Back when Pokemon had just came out in the States, before the whole little kids craze for it and it was cool, I played it to the state of addition. For the longest time when I was trying to sleep, all I could see was Ash walking around on the Game Boy screen, trying to find his monsters.

Lionheart

04:37 / 31.07.03

That happens to me. I play a first person shooter and then when I close my eyes it's all that I see.

Ofcourse when you actively listen to a song over and over it gets stuck in your head.

Memory in action?

cusm

17:15 / 31.07.03

That's a bit like your mind being so used to processing that pattern that it continues to do so after the source is removed. I got that with tetris, and something terrible back when I played Angband for hours at a time. I think it has to do with your neural net being over-trained to process a particular input, so that when it attempts to process new input, it keeps finding the old patterns. That goes along with the theory that dreams are your mind releasing trained patterns from your day's processing, like a mental cleanup.

For me, its actually the hypnopompic state I find most interesting, as it is there that I slip most easily into lucid dreaming or visionary states.

17:25 / 31.07.03

True, but the hypnopompic state seems very elusive for me. I've thought of trying that trick some famous genius had, of sleeping with my hand dangling off the bed and some kind of bell or loud noisy thing cupped in my palm, so I would periodically wake myself. But then, I've slept with a baby bat cupped in my palm, and that didn't lead to lucidity or visionary experiences, even when I was continually waking up to retrieve him from wherever he'd fluttered off to.

Secularius

19:24 / 31.07.03

gentlething,
I heard somewhere that Salvador Dali used that technique in order to dream up his surreal images. Any idea where he mentioned that?

00:15 / 01.08.03

I honestly don't remember who used it, although here is a link on Dali's technique of critical paranoia, discovered through intensive surfing of the FAQ's.

00:16 / 01.08.03

I don't, obviously, mean that Dali discovered this technique by reading Barbelith FAQs.

Quantum

09:58 / 01.08.03

I got that with tetris, and something terrible back when I played Angband for hours at a time. cusm
Gah! Moria afterimages burnt onto the retina!

Can you concentrate on areas not in your visual field? For example, fix your eye on something and then look at something in your peripheral vision without moving your eyes. It's blurry and indistinct, but you can do it. Now, can you concentrate on the blackness around your visual field? Look up as much as you can (you'll probably be looking at your eyebrows) and pay attention to the blackness above that- that surrounds everything you see all the time, but you never notice it. If you could look at that, you could 'see' into your own brain...
But seriously, any crazy stuff you saw there wouldn't be a product of your eyes but your mind/brain. What might that be like?

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