Do you have visual disturbances like static vision, afterimages, light sensitivity and trails?

[Autismvisualsnow]

Do you see millions of dots moving in your vision? Then you may suffer from visual snow syndrome. Some people with autism have this condition.

Other symptoms of visual snow syndrome are:

• Afterimages
• Seeing circles and starbursts around streetlight
• Light flashes in eye
• Blue field entoptic phenomenon (seeing worms in blue sky)
• Photophobia (Light sensitivity)
• Hyperacusis (Sound sensitivity)
• Headaches
• Tinnitus
• Numbness and tingling of body and skin

Visual snow appears most of the time after a trauma, panic attack or medication use/withdrawal.

According to research, hyperexcitibility of the visual part of the brain is responsible for these problems. It has nothing to do with the eyes.

 

[Judge]

Always had photophobia since I was a kid. And have had tinnitus for about the last three years.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Yes. I get visual snow and tinnitus. In the past 4 years I also have gotten black and white specks in my vision but that is getting better now.

 

[Pats]

Funny you should bring this up because I've spent the last couple days so depressed over the tinnitus and (I guess) other hyperexcitability in my brain because some days it's hard to live a life over those things (especially the tinnitis) Entire conversations I do not hear and the sudden jolts in my head make me not want to move. It can become very depressing.
As far as the vision stuff, in the past I had started a thread on the vision because growing up I used to think I was seeing molecules. But flashes of light, the starbursts around lights and those things I always thought everyone did that until just now. It wasn't until recently I discovered that the explosive head syndrome (loud sudden sounds in your head) was not something everyone experiences. I'm beginning to feel more and more alone as I learn that all the things I thought WAS normal is not.
Funny - I dreamed last night that the earth suddenly started spinning really fast - so fast you would watch the stars and moon pass through the sky and within a minute it was the next day. When I woke up I thought maybe that dream was me feeling like my time here is going by fast, but then it hit me that I had mentioned it making everyone dizzy and that the dream was because I'm feeling like what time I do have left I'm going to be dizzy and not hear anyone else. LOL

 

[tlc]

Never knew there was a name for it but I have most of that. I also get optical migraines at times (like you are looking through a kaliedoscope), usually at work. Poor tracking with quick movements. Like a quick look takes a second or two to refocus, or see trails. Since I was a kid, some contrasting colors would look like one was mounted on springs if you wiggle it. Like looking at a red LED alarm clock in the dark, the display bounces all over. To the point where I took one apart to see if it was really built that way. Sometimes see flashes in the dark. I thought the worms thing was either floaters, or pieces of lint floating in the eye fluid. I thought circles and starbursts was just plain glare. I've always had light and sound sensitivity. At times especially when I was younger, I'd have to wear double sunglasses at night to be able to drive back to college. Sometimes had to have my friends drive my car home. My eyes would burn horribly in light. Fluorescent lights in a classroom were too much. Even today I keep my computer monitor turned down much farther than most people. I get tingling and dizzy when getting up too fast, but again I thought everybody was that way. I am also nearsighted, but until I got glasses in 8th grade, I thought people weren't supposed to be able to see far away things, that's what binoculars were for.

 

[Annanda]

Seeing circles and starbursts around streetlight

Up to this moment I also thought it's normal. I see them, too and also get migraines specially, when light flashes are involved. Never was able to stay in a club a whole evening.
Some years ago I read "Vincent Van Gogh" a biographic novel written by Irving Stern. Great book! When I finished it, I started to cry and couldn't stop for three days. I felt like Stern was writing about myself. Hope this doesn't leave the mark of being megalomaniac.
I guess Van Gogh was an Aspie.
Do you know his paintings? There are circles around the stars, around the moon shining...it's fantastic.

 

[Pats]

Up to this moment I also thought it's normal. I see them, too and also get migraines specially, when light flashes are involved. Never was able to stay in a club a whole evening.
Some years ago I read "Vincent Van Gogh" a biographic novel written by Irving Stern. Great book! When I finished it, I started to cry and couldn't stop for three days. I felt like Stern was writing about myself. Hope this doesn't leave the mark of being megalomaniac.
I guess Van Gogh was an Aspie.
Do you know his paintings? There are circles around the stars, around the moon shining...it's fantastic.

Interesting consideration. Thanks.

 

[Ronin82]

OMG, you mean there's a REASON for all of that?!?!?!? Always seen halos around lights, after-images, "worms" and colored dots (actually thought I was looking at my own rods and cones!). Didn't realize its just part of being Autistic...so I'm NOT making up my sensitivities and symptoms! Good to know. And the visual/sound migraines and tinnitus are hell...

 

[Annanda]

Interesting consideration. Thanks.

There is another story I have to tell:
I was in London some years ago and went to National Gallery. As I didn't have a lot of time I decided to watch "only" the paintings of Van Gogh. I wanted to ask a custodian of the museum where to find them, but was so overwhelmed from all the great impressions of London, that I could only splutter: "I need Van Gogh".
The warm-hearted woman just replied: "We all need him."
So you see the marks an autistic person can leave in the world.

 

[LadyBird84]

Yes to all the eye stuff, but I also have cataract so it's kind of hard to say which is the cause.

 

[Tom]

Strange intro. So are you Johnny Visualsnowseed just spreading the word... Or are you selling something?

 

[Iamnotarabot]

Yes exept the last part, well it happens very rarely but I wont connect this to the rest of the thing you listed and as I said it's rare.

 

[TheFreeCat]

I'm beginning to feel more and more alone as I learn that all the things I thought WAS normal is not.

I am feeling that, too. I never knew that everyone was not acutely pained by their senses.

 

[TheFreeCat]

Do you see millions of dots moving in your vision? Then you may suffer from visual snow syndrome. Some people with autism have this condition.

Other symptoms of visual snow syndrome are:

• Afterimages
• Seeing circles and starbursts around streetlight
• Light flashes in eye
• Blue field entoptic phenomenon (seeing worms in blue sky)
• Photophobia (Light sensitivity)
• Hyperacusis (Sound sensitivity)
• Headaches
• Tinnitus
• Numbness and tingling of body and skin

Visual snow appears most of the time after a trauma, panic attack or medication use/withdrawal.

According to research, hyperexcitibility of the visual part of the brain is responsible for these problems. It has nothing to do with the eyes.

I have horrible problems with all my senses. Yes, it is neuro. But they cannot fix it.

 

[Kyou Nukui]

Yes, and it makes staring at a plain/plain-ish wall, in a very dimly lit room, while listening to music on headphones, really good fun.
With or without herbs it's always great.

I never heard the term "visual snow" before. I was only aware that people's eyes glaze over when I mention the fun I am having watching the show.

I'm confused how on earth can't they see their rods and cones? ..and relaxing focus, watching the "snow" doesn't even intensify the brightness and enlarge their cones from dots into flakes, and they don't perceive patterns in the flakes, amazingly astronomically complex mandalas of brightly coloured pebbles and glass and splatters of solid colour flooding through from behind the astronomandala.
Like "what? you can't see that all the time?"

I like how the imprint of the thing I looked at a moment ago affects the patterns I see next, I like the way the two images are superimposed then constructed from the intricate ever-changing patterns.

I don't like the TV before bed and any bright lights. I can see flickering light for a long time after switching off a bright light.

 

[Gracey]

What are the geometric shapes? Mainly triangular and all linked, curving and obscuring part of my vision?

Vibrant blue, ochre, black/green and white?

Is the above to do with a migraine?

 

[Kyou Nukui]

It might be to do with a migraine for some, not for me fortunately.
I see my pointillist image at all times, with varying levels of graininess/definition and of structure/order/chaos.

I get migraine from loud noise but mostly people and TV, I usually prefer music fairly quiet too and constant throughout the day.

 

[Gracey]

I don’t get any discomfort (headaches) just temporary obstruction of clear vision.

It passes eventually.
Figured it was part of a migraine.

I can see the globe of light around the old (uk) orange street lights, haven’t really noticed it around the new blue-white l.e.d street lights.

Haven’t really looked at the brighter, led streetlights if I’m honest,
Just thought, ‘ooo that’s bright’ and then forgot about them.

 

[Ronin82]

Wow, @Kyou Nukui those pictures look pretty close to what I see when I really pay attention to the "pixels" in my vision...I didn't realize this was an abnormal state of affairs....good to know!

 

[Graphin]

I do get at least some of the effects here, but also lots of other various stuff. Especially in the influence of flourescent lights or some kinds of projectors.