I Have Sparkle Vision. Is That Normal?
Now that I’m living in a house and have a front porch again, I spend a lot more time just sitting outside staring at the sky, watching clouds and birds (Big Sky country is conducive to that). Anyway, I’m seeing the sparkles again. I used to see them all the time, but that was back when I was a whimisical, spaced-out art school student who often took to cloud-gazing for long periods of time.
This sparkle vision is probably a normal, common thing; some kind of natural, visual phenomena that occurs when you stare at bright backgrounds, such as the sky in daylight. But I’ve never heard anyone mention it. Then again, I’ve never mentioned it. It’s not one of those things that comes up in conversation, I guess.
What it looks like is a million tiny fireflies flickering in and out of sight, everywhere I look (everywhere with a light enough background to see them against). I used to romanticize it, imagining I was seeing through the surface into the aliveness of everything, seeing the energy itself which forms the universe. I still like to entertain that notion, but this morning I got curious enough to look into possible scientific explanations, so I googled it in relation to visual and neurological phenomena. I found very little along these (or any) lines, except for this (though I doubt what I see is what they’re describing)…
“Cosmic ray particles constantly bombard the earth causing little explosions of elementary particles which form a beam of matter and anti-matter particles rushing through the atmosphere…”
“‘It is amazing that with simple FM radio antennas we can measure the energy of particles coming from the cosmos’ says Prof. Heino Falcke… ‘If we had sensitive radio eyes, we would see the sky sparkle with radio flashes.’”
…and then this (a guy on a forum listing a bunch of physical symptoms he has, including sparkle vision):
“In late January, I began to notice bright spots moving like fireflies in my peripheral vision. This usually occurred after bending down or exerting myself, but not always. It happens about once every couple of days and the spots last only a few seconds. I also began seeing “sparkles”, bright non-moving dots in my peripheral vision when looking at objects in bright light. The first occurrence was when I was filling my tank and reading the gas pump. I could suddenly see hundreds of sparkling specks against the cloudy sky in the background. This has progressed from occurring only in bright sunlight to normal roomlight. The sparkles usually only show against a bright background (a wall, cloudy sky, a piece of paper, etc.) and last as long as I look at that object. The “sparkles” are not episodic. If the light is bright enough, I can reproduce this at any time by looking at an object for as little as one second. The longer I look at the object, the more sparkles appear. If I shift my gaze, they will disappear…”
His description almost perfectly matches what I experience, except I don’t correlate it with any particular event, my sparkles move around, and they aren’t just in my peripheral vision, they’re everywhere. Also, if I stare at them long enough, the air itself starts to pulsate and then flow into a kind of vortex in the center of my visual field. This might be a good time to mention that I haven’t consumed any illegal or hallucinogenic substances in years.
It doesn’t seem to be a problem or anything. I don’t have any of the other symptoms the guy mentions in the above-quoted post. I’m curious if any of you experience this, or anything similar, and/or if you’re aware of any information on it, scientific or otherwise.
Meanwhile I’ll just imagine that what I’m seeing is cosmic energy particles, like the “Dust” in His Dark Materials, and it’s because I have super cosmic radio eyes. ;)
comments
30 Responses to “I Have Sparkle Vision. Is That Normal?”
The same thing happens to me… Quite strange If I may say so.
I found this website via StumbleUpon, and must admit, I thought I was the only one with this problem. I have the exact same thing. My experience is almost as exact as his, except, like you, It’s not with one experience or another, well, yeah, I have the exact same thing, I’ll just put it that way. Since I was a little, tiny girl even I remember staring at these swirling little “fireflies”… and yes, it does remind me of “Dust” from His Dark Materials, lol.
Yeah, apparently it’s quite common after all. And here’s a bit of odd coincidence. Immediately after posting this post, I posted a White Stripes song/tutorial, and it’s from the album ‘White Blood Cells’.
Then I get a message on youtube from a fellow named ben who tells me he also sees these and he found a possible explanation as to what we’re seeing. What is it? White Blood Cells. Here’s the link he gave me which explains it.
For the past 3 days I have been experiencing what seems like one, single, moving sparkle in my peripheral vision of my left eye. It happens about 6 or 7 times a day. It is kind of like a floater, but bright and gold and shiny and moving and on my far left peripheral vision only. I am on an eye drop steroid for inflammation of the eye, but my eye doctor said it is not a side efect. Can you help?
Sure I can help. My advice: Get a second opinion.
Well at least now noone will doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!
Oh, No one should ever doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion. I’d rather brush my teeth and drink orange juice than be uncommitted to Sparkle Motion!
Sparkle Motion!!!
This my first visit to your web site, which I stumbled upon through Chordie. First off, nice site!! Really informative on all thing’s and I mean all thing’s! I also have “the firefly syndrome”, and rather enjoy it. It’s like my own private light show and sometimes it is accompanied by a dizzy feeling, which I consider a little bonus, lol. So before this get’s too long, too late, just wabt to wish Brooke luck with recording and everything else as well as veeryone else who visits this happy little site. Take care.
Thanks Owen! I love luck!
I’m a little concerned that you’re getting dizzy… I don’t get that at all.
You Have This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon
I Have This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floaters
Well there you go. Thanks for the link Dexter!
lol all of this “crap” about tiny ion particles bombarding the atmosphere lol they dont explod they form the northern lights but what the genral idea of these
constant sparkles is like the background static of a tv only in your eyes.
the ones that float around your eyes that are generally black (are vision receptor cells not having enough oxygen becuse of physical exertion,white,golden or yellow.
sometimes you can have black ones that do not float around but stick there for about 5 seconds i have this sometimes i might get it checked out.
I have this myself, and have been going nuts for about a year trying to get help with it. (I also have systemic Lupus, kinda like arthritis, so it sucks cause the doctors want to lump it all in together).
.
The name I see it going by most is “Visual Snow”; my current neurologist gave me a diagnosis of “Persistant Migraine Aura”. It would appear that its almost CERTAINLY NOT eye related (eg that stuff about seeing white blood cells, thats totally unrelated) because you can cover an eye, then switch & still see the EXACT same patterns.
.
It started for me after a period of VERY intense stress (a big move and new relationship), and a drug called ‘Lexapro’ for depression was given to me. I take a pain killer, Ultram, too, and maybe the two interacted??? Maybe the stress itself triggered it too.
.
The only thing I know is that it is affected by stress, fear, and even severe physical exertion; if one of these things happens, little fireflies will suddenly turn into *FIREBALLS* meaning way worse lights and halos.
.
I have been on several meds to try and combat this monster. First, a series of anti-inflamatories, basically Aleve-type stuff. No effect. Then, a drug called “Topamax” was tried, and based on some possible evidence this seemed promising. Started at 25mg & went up to 300mg… at the max dosage, I had very little results, and EXTREME vertigo plus I was tired and lost a lot of weight.
.
Coincidentally, I’m off to this dude tomorrow to try again. Not sure what he’ll recommend but I’ll be back to let you know if I hear anything.
.
Good luck,
Dave
Wow Dave, sounds like what you have is something more serious, maybe not the same thing. I hope you get it all taken care of soon. Best of luck to you! Keep us posted.
Hey, I know it has been a long time since anyone has accessed this site but i wanted to add that I too have this so called sparkle vision. My vision is linked closer to stress and I am having something similar to Daves experience. I had this vision problem when I was experiencing intense anxiety before and when I was put on zoloft for a while it seemed to subside. Last monday I had an anxiety attack and went back on the zoloft and I have had the “visual snow” ever since. This tells me that it is triggered by stress and many studies have shown vision problems as triggered by stress. I am an 18 year old college student and I am just trying to let this anxiety subside again because I know it will then go away…….
Yeah, this happens to me as well. I had it happen to me when I lay on my back looking up at the sky. They are like little fluorescent circles that move about. I began noticing this when I was much younger, at first I thought I had a problem. Since then I haven’t payed much attention to it. I have never told anyone about it either. I just assumed it had something to do with the way my eyes focus.
I too see the exact same thing, i thought i was going crazy as no doctor could give me an answer. It is almost identical as to what you and others have posted. I hope one day i can go without seeing them but i have had this for 7 years and it is the same. No better no worse.
This has to be a sign of something, we need to all come together and see if we can fix it.
brooke i have the same exact thing down to the vortex and everything
As someone above posted this is often attributed to vision cells lacking oxygen. There is also another explanation, Partial epileptic seizures. A seizure is not always how we picture, depending on where in the brain it occurs can induce different effects. Such as hallucinations or dots in your peripheral vision. Watch this youtube video from the epileptic awareness people and visit this site. If you can answer yes to multiple of these questions it is best to talk to your family doctor about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e10FSjHvV74&feature=related
http://www.pni.org/neuropsychiatry/instruments/inset/inset_short.html
If your sugar level runs a little low you will see black sparklets for a few seconds after you just get up or move around….you may also get a slight dizzy feeling. But when staring at bright or even the deep blue sky you can see what appears as light pulses shooting, spinning and turning as if they have a purpose. I enjoy watching them because they’re so unique and graceful. Not everyone sees them so consider yourself blessed, we can see something going on whether its a natural phenomeon or just in our own minds that others can not. And they can’t take that away from us!
That’s some sexy sentence structure. I may need to splice it into a song. :)
ok, here i go; probably at a great risk of sounding politically incorrect(sorry,y´all):
if matter on earth is continuously changing(evolution wise) don´t you think the density of the energy will change accordingly?
i´ve had the flashing pinpoints,also in open spaces.I also didn´t know what it was,but i´ve learned to live with it when it occurs.
I´m not denying the factual “scientific” reality.
Shall i give another example?
When verbally attacked i feel an animic weakness
in my stomach and sometimes the heart area too.
does that mean i´m hallucinating about being energetically attacked?
I´ve had less and less this (flash ppts)last year, but i don´t find it freakyish at all.our senses are connected to our brains.
i think even precognition is a deffense tool; just like the adrenaline trigger.
I honestly don´t think it´s an eye “problem”; i believe it is more of a natural adaptation.why shouldn´t humans be able to “see” energy?maybe it will have a function.our ancestors had to go through some kind of cognitive and physical changes; maybe the x,y,z generations that had those felt freakyish about it too,lol.
all these posts from different ppl who don´t know each other look like a confirmation of my hipothesis.(to me; and my experiencing this.i´m not imposing it!)
i can understand what you guys are taking about, me too i got these strange particles seeing thing,when i was a kid and it lasted for years… as i read earlier it happened exactly the same thing to me at first i thought it was just dust particles then later i realize that they have the same structure of a white blood cell.
I admit that in the beginning it fascinated me but after staring at an object or the sky for long time the number of those moving particles started to increase in number, at that time i was young and i go scared but never told anyone because i thought that if i stop concentrating and staring on objects it will go, but it didn’t until later in my life when i started to wear glasses it’s only then that i lost that vision, but when years passed my eyes got worst, i mean that i can’t read thing from a distant of 5metres without my glasses …
I don’t if everyone like me had this strange particle seeing vision at some stage of ttheir life but without any harm caused to them, i believe that everyone do have some thing special about their life but not everyone says it may be they think it normal or just stupid.
i forgot to say one more thing about those strange vision, some times when i’m concentrating on some thing specially when i’m alone in a room then suddenly every straight lines that i can see start to move from right to left and this goes on till i don’t fore my brain to think that this is just an hallucination and i take control, i know that their must be some kind of scientific reason or i don’t know what any false reason someone can give but thats totally wierd. I don’t really understand the power of our eyes… anyway f***k that because nobody cares
hey. i realised i see more and more sparkles a lot lately, and it has heightened my anxiety. i see a lot of floaters too, but i had an eye exam a little over a month ago, so i am not too worried, seeing as what i have read on it on the net.
i liked what you said about romanticising with it. when i was youngfer i used to look for the sparkles, pretending they were fairies, and i notice that i only see them when i remember hat they are there nowadays.
i like to pretend that it’s the 4th dimension trying to break through to ours, and i am the only one who can stop it therefore i am the only one getting the sparkles. even though lots of people ave sai about seeing them here. maybe we are all battlers against the collision of the dimensions…hmmm…
“maybe we are all battlers against the collision of dimensions”
i like the way you think, and that’s a kick-ass line.
it may show up in a song one day. :)
me, I’d probably just let the dimensions collide rather than battle against it, but maybe that would be disastrous, who knows. I suddenly want to read His Dark Materials again.
if you ever find out what this is let me know
amazing! i am now 55 and have had sparkles since i was 11, never mentioned it to anyone til this week when i asked my meditation teacher, jim, if he had ever come across this before. also the effect coincided with my developing tinnitus, has anybody else had this happen as well? i once read that the golden darting dots are prana, chi, lifeforce or what ever you like to call it! sue
Man, this is reassuring, I am 28 and started seeing these when i was about 25. It all triggered after a stupid doctor misdiagnosed a genuine concern I had about my health as depression and put me on effexor. That stuff really did a number on my brain. I remember coming off the stuff and having these crazy brain zaps like I was getting hit by a lightning bolt. Soon after I got off of that, I noticed my vision was starting to produce halos on contrasting images of black and white, or any other high contrast. I had a scan and some other stuff, nothing showed relevance. This time in my life was also filled with extreme stress, new job, new wife, fear of a bad health problem, etc… Turns out the lump I felt all the time in my throat was not cancer, and was in fact a super large tonsil that was catching the back of my throat causing the illusion of a lump. a good ENT realised this and just hit it with an anti-inflamatory and poof, no more lump.
But the effexor i have always blamed, nothing like this occured till after that. i have the thousands of lighting flashes in the background best defined as white blood cells. after a recent class I had on the mechanics of the human eye, I realised what it was, looks just like em.
Good look to everyone, this is the first time I found others with the same debacle. Makes me feel better as I have been to every form of doctor and nothing is wrong physically.