Closed Eye Visuals

[foxgrrl]

Frequently, for at least the last decade or so, when I close my eyes, I see very intense and organic images. I didn't realize that this was at all unusual until I was discussing the effects that psychedelics have with a friend of mine. What they described that they experienced while tripping, sounds a lot like what I experience all the time.

The visuals don't continue over into the open-eyed world. So I can be sitting in Physics class, taking notes on Hamiltonian mechanics, close my eyes and watch the ladybugs crawling over the grass, open my eyes and take some more notes, close my eyes and watch the waves breaking at the ocean, open my eyes and take some more notes…

The world, this world, looks the same as it always has — as I've experienced it from childhood. So this doesn't effect my ability to drive, or play sports, or be a good little worker drone. But when I close my eyes, I can watch a slow pan over the surface of a small river, with long blades of green grass sticking up through the surface. Everything is shinning, as if the surface was a glossy photograph. Beneath the water, wisps of gray-blue smoke, flowing and curling over the rocks and under the glossy surface.

Infinitesimally thin metallic colored filaments, twisting into helices, swaying slowly back and forth. Red arched doorways, rimmed with rows of shark's teeth, morphing into a regular series of caves. Hills covered with white adobe buildings, glowing in the twilight. Tidal pools with anemones morphing into Wolves running across arctic tundra… You don't see this stuff when you close your eyes?

I wonder if there's some part of my brain that's just dreaming all the time, or at least at times like these, and that's why I don't have to sleep in this state. (Other than my physical body becoming very worn.)

There have been a few occasions, where these visions have matched up with my current environment. I can basically look around the room, walk around, and find stuff, all with my eyes firmly shut. The odd thing about these occasions is that everything is either a very noisy/grainy black and white image, with unusual lighting — the way things usually are when I have a full hypnogogic experience. Or I see everything in full color, with colorful fuzz dripping off of everything (like shag carpeting, or liquid plastic), and I can look through solid objects too — this has only really happened once or twice.

Maybe I'm just crazy.

[Poll #1002237]

Comments

[subtly-modded.livejournal.com]

part of what i love so much about that weird, amorphous zone when you're nearly asleep is the visuals i get/can make happen. when i'm fully awake, things just kinda...well i get a black background with lots of faint colors everywhere, all rainbow-y.

[whimsywanderer.livejournal.com]

Hmm...
I generally have to answer all of the above, plus more.
Depends on the day, depends on the hour.
I think the effects of psychedelics is simply to make such eyes-closed visuals more intense, weirder, out of the generally 'normal' mode. Or just to have us notice them better. Oh, and some of them appear with eyes open.

The real question I have is, how much of it is 'mind's eye' and how much is 'false vision'. The question is in reference to the fact that I can get that sort of vision with my eyes -open-(and yes, sober), in a manner that doesn't affect my real vision at all. It's like I'm seeing through a 'third eye', or my 'mind's eye'. I'm seeing the real world with my normal vision, while envisioning something else entirely.

So, are the closed eye visuals just this, only more noticeable because the other visual stimulation is turned off? Or is this something else entirely?

Oh, I also get strange fuzzy colored stuff, but I tend to think that that's just what the eyes are -actually- transmitting to the brain while the eyelids are shut. Pseudo-random after-patterns. Looks like screensavers. But this is a different vision than the one that sees full-formed images like like ladybugs and adobe buildings. I tend to think that's 'mind's eye' stuff.

Never forget, your brain does a lot of things and a lot of those things you don't want to know about

[reo-the-eagle.livejournal.com]

I've had CEV since they put me on Lithium years ago...
HPPD is a bitch

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

In my peripheral vision, things shift quite a bit. I have a blanket that is a pseudo-Native American blanket, which I've used on certain shamanic activities, but the crazy thing about it is that the colors are so scintillating that if I am not looking directly at it, but it's in my field of view, it shifts back and forth intensely and distractingly. I've had light visual hallucinations for much of my life--one time they were so intense that my mom kept me home from school. She (and the doctors) suspected it was from overmedication on asthma drugs. I've been off them for years, but they still happen. This is why it has never been difficult for me to have certain types of visionary experience. I've never needed psychedelics, I've just needed slightly altered chemistry through certain limited forms of fasting (because complete fasting as an insulin-dependent diabetic is pretty stupid), perhaps some drumming or music, attention to breathing, and I'm there.

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

I was on very heavy (almost toxic) level of theophyline (I can't recall if that's the correct spelling--it might not have an "e" on the end), which, in the case of the particular form I was on (Theo-Dur), was shown to cause type I diabetes in lab animals in large enough doses. Guess what? I got type I diabetes from it! Anyway, I'm interested in hearing further info, if you have any...

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

I was also on sporadic heavy doses of Prednisone at the time as well; I think the cocktail probably didn't do my system very well in general. I knew someone who became a Type I diabetic late in life, who had Crone's Disease, and was on prednisone for that...I wonder if there isn't a connection there as well. Hmm.

At this point, not only do I not trust doctors very much, I also can't even afford to go to them (no job, no insurance). The medical system in this country is a complete racket; I lived in Ireland for five years, and even as a non-citizen, I had access to totally free medical care (which even most of their citizens don't get) because of my multiple conditions, which their administration simply views as "bad luck" and therefore people in that situation should get assistance.

[redshrike.livejournal.com]

very similar to an altered polaroid (altered using pressure), but the color scheme is black background with various fluorescent colored stripes/streaks, which correspond to brighter images in what i was just seeing. similar in design to a mis-scanned fax, but in color.

[axonfuel.livejournal.com]

Light creeping in through the cracks and corners, little signal flares. Or a *pulse* *pulse* *pulse* if I close my eyes in front of the computer screen.

I don't get fancy closed-eye visuals.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Part of why I spent so much time deliberately depriving myself of sleep back when I was 18-20 or so was in order to explore hypnagogia.

I kind of miss that.

[tobyhush.livejournal.com]

So, most people who take the time will be able to see fairly complex visuals behind their eyes without drugs. It's called a hypnagogic state: http://skepdic.com/hypnagogic.html OR http://neurology.health-cares.net/hypnagogic-hallucination.php

Having said that, I became much more aware and sensitive to it after I'd spent a long time doing meditation and similar things that let me alter my perception in various ways.
In this state I've seen all sorts of interesting things.

[espiritkat.livejournal.com]

Wow. A lot of us said Geometric Patterns. That is interesting. Does it count if I am really drunk right now?

Then my geometric shapes are dancing in unison. :-)

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I see visual snow with my eyes open--it was one of the first symptoms I developed when health problems started, and one of the reasons why I don't drive. (Have other visual weirdness going on too, but visual snow is the easiest to describe to other people.)

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

The more I have been fooling around with my digital camera under abysmal light conditions, the more I have noticed I see "noise" when it's dark and/or I'm tired, eventually to the point of snow.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Remind me to dig you up links about fibromyalgia and sleep/wake cycles when *I'm* a bit wakier.

what do i see when i close my eyes... what do you see

[trema-slo.livejournal.com]

I answered geometric patterns AND alternative universe because it's the closest answers available in your poll. I don't see what you see. Your revelation of this is extremely interesting to me. The other thing I see is lights, small and large, varying from one to a million. I call them "my angels" and they seem to respond to certain of my spiritual moods. What a neat discussion! Thanks for bringing this out.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I get either blackness or something that's none of the above, depending on things like lighting and what I was looking at before I closed my eyes. Usually there are blobs or streaks; the color(s) vary. They're too indistinct to be geometric. There's a bright snow-type effect; very small bright dots against the dark background. In some lighting, a clear after image, like a photonegative, for a moment, but it fades quickly.

[tiggerfox.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I can control it, fly around go places. Sometimes it feels like I am in someone else's body, looking through their eyes. It's how vivid it seems to be that strikes me. I have often practiced trying to bring it into my reality. I always felt being able to bring in overlays on top of whatever I am working on would be useful. Sometimes it is like watching tv.

I don't think your going crazy, I think you just pay more attention to it/enjoy it more then most =)

[kysh.livejournal.com]

I have great difficulty visualizing anything I want to visualize. It's like trying to use a thumbtack to pin down a marble coated with lube. But sometimes, if I close my eyes and just chase what's there, I'll go very interesting places. I consider it almost a form of meditation.

The one odd thing is that when I close my eyes, I am a dragon. I can almost see myself, but I can -feel-.

Sometimes I'll have a night during which I cannot sleep. I'll toss and turn desperately for hours on end but sleep won't come. I tend, however, to have little microsleep events with visuals and sounds and so forth, just before I drop off to sleep.. and when I never do, they can become almost a torment.

When I close my eyes near sunlight, I see all sorts of wonderful things.


-Kysh

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah - an accidentally-large dose of THC a few months ago had me seeing my own aura from slightly outside, and all the chakras with tight, hot field-lines connecting them.

I'm still trying to decide if it was me imagining things along lines various readings have led me to expect, or if I was perceiving some real phenomenon that countless others have seen and described. (And by 'some real phenomenon' I am discounting it being 'abstract images created by my visual cortex firing at random'; I've analyzed my chemically-induced images on that basis before!)

I've also been finally experimenting with trying to get some of these kinds of states without chemical aid, after the Chapel Perilous experience of that hallucination(?).

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

What I see when I close my eyes depends on how much good sleep I've been getting. Usually if it is anything more than just the visual snow I've always got, it's swirling colors (I picked screen savers in your poll!) which vary depending on the lighting around me. During various kinds of sleep deprivation or other somewhat-altered states, I can get all sorts of interesting imagery, though it's rarely realistic unless I'm actually falling asleep.

[tlttlotd.livejournal.com]

I see some of the things on the list of stuff in the poll, but that doesn't cover the half of it.

I see a lot of silver and grey-tone visuals, sometimes corresponding to things that actually exist, but more abstract patterns than anything else. Kind of like taking a high-res photograph of a cityscape or a messy room and painting over the really big stuff (like furniture) with reflective silver paint or white-out.

Lots of horizontal bars, too - yes, I visualize copperbars. I think Future Crew programmed part of my visual cortex. No scrollies, though.

[merovingian.livejournal.com]

The less sleep I've had lately, the more likely I am to get full, elaborate, glorious closed-eye visuals.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

Depends on what contract I'm running at the time.

[soquili-gitli.livejournal.com]

I'm led to believe that this is a lot more common than one might think. Like you, I thought it was just how EVERYONE worked until I talked to some people. Given the 1.5 year period I spent doing hallucinogenics every weekend, I just came to accept that it can be a rather pleasant sensation and moved on.

When my migraines came back last Spring, the visuals intensified exponentially and would sometimes creep over into open-eye state. It seems, at least for mine, that they're intermittently tied to my blood pressure.

[soquili-gitli.livejournal.com]

I'm checked for glaucoma every year when I get my eye exam. Very much in the category of 'better safe than sorry'. The blood-pressure thing is weird, as I had regular blood pressure previous to starting on BP medication. Now I run rather towards the low side.

Really, I'm just used to being a mutant.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It depends on what state I'm in. There's the afterimage of what I was just looking at, that may hover and decay for a moment. There's fine networks of triangular abstractions that vary when I squeeze my eyelids tighter, or press on my eyes.

And then there's images. Sometimes. Not always. Images are more likely when I'm in a chemically-induced state.

I checked 'comic books' because sometimes, these images are stylized in ways I've learnt from my study of comics. They're usually stylized and abstracted in some way - I guess this is just how I've trained my brain to 'finish' an image. Sometimes it's a way you might see me draw it on paper, sometimes it's a way I never actually draw... but a lot of them are pretty unambiguously images that are in the style of some piece of art I've seen in my thirty-seven years of looking at art.

[lumin-esc.livejournal.com]

I'm mildly synesthetic and when I close my eyes, I see my tinnitus: static-y dark purple zero gravity melting and merging oblongs with very vague highlights of sparkly green. It's always been there (even when my eyes are open), but I didn't realize until recently that 13KHz is just at the upper range of purple and dipping into white/lime green.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Ok, my eyes are closed, and I think I'm seeing a field of black with like grey strands and spots here and there. How boring compared with what everyone else sees. Wheee. Grey strands.

Oh well.

[tiggerfox.livejournal.com]

I have to say I worry about those people who see Commander Taco.