| masraum |
03-17-2023 04:03 PM |
If you close your eyes and rub them, what do you see?
When you rub your eyes, what do you see? At first I see some colors, but if I keep rubbing and try to "look at" or "see" the colors, they become geometric patterns almost like you might see when looking into a kaleidoscope.
On a related note, I'd noticed in the past, that if I close my eyes, and then lightly press on the eyelid, that I see a colored spot roughly opposite when I'm pressing. I assume that has to do with the fact that our vision is normally upside down, but our brain naturally fixes it so we perceive it right-side up. I've always assumed that the pressure from where I press causes some sort of visual anomaly which the brain then flips over because that's what it always does.
Back to the patterns that develops when I rub my eyes. I think I remember seeing the kaleidoscope like patterns when I was a kid and closed my eyes, possibly without rubbing them. Over the years, I've formed the theory that the rubbing causes the colors due to pressure and movement, then the brain tries to fit the information that it's receiving from the eyes into something it knows, and the best that it can come up with is geometric patterns.
I can get a similar effect by just pressing on my eyes. I'll initially get colors that are usually dark red, and if I keep pressing with constant pressure, the colors will intensify and get brighter. I also get some movement in the colors, but not usually the same distinct geometric kaleidoscope patterns.
I remember reading an article written by someone that was blind. I'm not sure if they were born blind or became blind. I remember thinking that they had been able to see and then went blind. What I remember of the article was that everyone assumed that blind folks lived in darkness, but that this person said that they always see colors all of the time, and that what they see is bright and always there to the point that it actually makes it difficult for them to sleep.
My assumption is that this is kind of like the visual version of tinnitus. My understanding of tinnitus is that the brain is expecting input in a certain range of frequencies. When it stops receiving input on some ranges, it cranks the gain all of the way up trying to amplify a "weak signal" and what that does to us is essentially creates a really high noise floor at those frequencies that we've got damaged/lost hearing. My assumption is that the article about the blind person is essentially where the brain is trying to amplify a signal and creating the visual version of what folks with tinnitus hear. I think that's loosely related to my brain trying to make sense of the colors from rubbing the eyes and causing them to be perceived as geometric patterns (where there are no triangles, squares or straight lines).
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