The static yes, the purple no.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
396 points (98.3% liked)
No Stupid Questions
44436 readers
1077 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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
@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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
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
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
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!
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
load more comments
(2 replies)
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
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
Visual snow is when you see it with eyes open afaik. But yea, still not terribly abnormal on its own. Visual snow syndrome is a thing though, but it's more than just seeing an abnormal amount of visual snow (the normal amount seems to be when looking at unicolored surfaces and in dim light).
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
Better than seeing weird letters and 80 style colored geometric shape sliding around.
load more comments
(2 replies)
You have too much gain.
But yeah it's normal.
Bro is a CRT
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
load more comments
(3 replies)
From m'eye experience. Yes.
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....
load more comments
(3 replies)
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
load more comments
(4 replies)
I always assumed everyone saw it. I'm not special after all.
Though mine is gray, definitely not purple.
load more comments
(3 replies)
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)
Yes. I "see" it too but can unsee it quite easily. I think it's more apparent in unlit environments.
load more comments
(2 replies)
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
If you see this when your eyes are open then it may be visual snow.
Visual snow syndrome - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome
load more comments
(5 replies)
view more: next ›