Floaters are a common cause of floating lights, but I do wonder if one or two posters in this thread have a mild case of charles bonnet syndrome. (do a google search on that, if you've not heard of it.)

if the part of the brain that handles vision gets starved of stimulation, then it can get start making up work for itself from boredom, so to speak. Simple patterns are quite common, and it doesn't have to be the more complex hallucinations of objects and people to qualify as cbs.

Ive found out from 3 different doctors that they are just blood cells passing through my eye...Do some research and maybe thats what ur seeing and ur focusing on it too much.

I've just recently started noticing (two runs ago) this same effect (little white swirly things) while running. Have had floaters start (male, 29, 6' 170bs, athletic, lasik 4 years ago, previous rx -4.0 each eye) maybe 6 mos ago and started going through this mad observational phase.

It seems like it calms down a bit after running a little further, warming up around 10 minutes. As someone else mentioned, each bounce on the pavement seemed to cause a bit of a shift in vision. Focusing in on the floaters seems to make it worse, and it seems like if I "leave" myself to this, the field of numerous of these white swirly things just increases. Of course, that creates panic which perhaps starts a further cycle. Also, I can more or less see a visual response to my pulse if I lean my head over when stretching afterward. I wear a heart rate monitor, so have a good feel for how fast the hearts beating.

Any other observations when running, as the other poster suggested?

My vision is more or less perfect now, as has been since lasik. Have been through 3 dilated exams in last 6 months, no problems seen. It's good reading about others exposure to these. It's unbelievable depressing. I've caught myself thinking "well, I need to be running back toward the car in case there's a retinal detachment." you're definitely not alone in having that shiver of fear run through you when these things start becoming more noticeable, for whatever reason they choose to.

How successful are docs, when saying there are no visible problems, in telling the truth? In otherwords, - how often do people actually develop serious problems after the doc says all is good.

I experience simliar problems as mentioned in this post.

I wonder how your lifes look otherwise.

Can computer usage (looking at the screen) have any impact? I work at an it company. Spending a minumum of 8 hours/day infront of a compuyter, and sometimes feel this is worsening my case.

Otherwise, could other aspects as sleep, food or alcohol have any impact?

Last night in night school I had a similar "sparkle" incident, random sparkles of light that could not be shaken off. It lasted around 30 seconds to a minute. I am 16 as well. :twisted:

If u have already myopic vision, ur teen years are big changes for ur eyes and ur floaters do change a lot, just goes with everything else to make ur teen years more exciting.

I'd call ur doctor and let him know about the flashes, let him make the call on whether or not u need to have ur retinas checked. Always better to be safe on that... When u have a retinal detachment, the first 48 hours are the most crucial.

My 16 year old son has the same symptoms travis13 mentioned, and has been to all the same doctors he's talked about. I've also had a ringing in my ears and peripheral lights and blurred vision. Both started last july.

Did anyone's problems begin with a sickness of some kind? My son and I were working hard outdoors in the heat when his symptoms started. At first we thought it was an aura migraine, which both of us have been prone to. Within a week of each other, we were both sick with what I thought was heat sickness. We had complete lethargy for about 3 days. The symptoms I described above have been constant since then.

We thought we were quite alone in this until we read the posts on ehealthforum. I am a journalist, and have been all over the net, and have contacted the cdc. Now that I know there are at least a couple of others who have experienced the same symptoms, i'm contacting epidemiologists to see if there are others who have reported the same things.

I''m thinking this is some type of virus. I can think of no other explanation for the two of us getting problems with our vision within a week of each other. My son's symptoms are much harder for him to deal with, and though he stays very active, there are times when it really gets him down, especially when he gets a cold or something and can't be as active.

Do any of the rest of you have well water? We've had it tested for bacteria, and we're now having it tested for metals.

Please let me know if any of you have had any luck treating the condition since your posts.

Hello everyone... Just joined this forum and find helpful info here... I wud like to share my experience... Recently I have been seeing dancing white lights in my field of vision... It apprears like a a swarm of dancing patterns that wud not go away... It gets more obvious when I go into a brightly lit place or coming in from one... It doesn't go away and I have been having it a couple of weeks now.... My history... 2 months ago my right eye was injured and had a retinal detachment and seceral buclking and laser was done.... During this period the dancing light was not there... It only happened recently... And first on the injured eye and now on the good eye... I had a eye check last week and in fact the doctor said that my retina is healing in the injured eye and that my left eye seems good... No retinal detachment or any other thing that he can see.... And he has no explanation as mto the dancing lights...
After reading here from travis, I wud think that it has something to do woth brain activity... My left eye has been trying to compensate my right after the injury and probably it has a hard time doing that, trying to adjust and the other theory is the seeing the white blood cells thing... Thks for letting me share and hopefully it will help others as well gives support to myself from other people experience....

I have the same symptom -- you describe it exactly -- swarms of white things when I look at light backgrounds.

My neuro-opthamologist called it "entropic phenomena" or "entoptic phenomena" -- seeing white blood cells when you look at a light background.

I'm not a doctor, but I started seeing these things, or at least noticing them about the same time the doctor noted that my blood pressure was a little higher.

Have you gotten your blood pressure checked? Could it be that you have high blood pressure and are therefore seeing these white flashes when at rest?

Just a suggestion -- one that I intend to bring up to my doctors next time I see them...

Brent ward

I have been seeing the white sparkles and the floaters for 12 years now nonstop the sparkles started when I was 13 and the floaters came about 3 years later. The doc says that my eyes are fine every year my vision is 20/25 my only problem is these sparkles, the floaters don't really bother me 2 much.

I am 25 years old and have been seeing swarms of white in front of my eyes for about five years. It sounds excactly like what some of the others have described here; they each dance for about half a sceond/a second then disappears, they are not fully visible unless I look at something bright like the sky (but they have gradually become more and more visible and now effects every single visionary experience in some way). In the beginning there were fewer of them - maybe 20-30 in the very beginning - but it has evolved gradually throughout the last five years, and now there are houndreds, maybe thousands of these tiny white flashes that move in front of my eyes like a swarm of tiny insects. Frustrating indeed. And they are constantly there, all day, all night. However it seems that they can differ slightly in strentgh from time to time, apparently depending on certain things: after a night of heavy drinking they can be really vivid and forceful, but after a good long swim (or jog) they seem to be less forceful.


I also started seeing floaters about a year ago, these are also evolving; in the beginning there was only a few see-through jelly like circles in the top left, now there are clusters of these and some of them has turned into dark clouds of smoke that floats down when I move my eyes.
My night vision has slowly derailed as well. Sometimes it's hard to see things in the dark.

I am not sure what this can have anything to do with. I have thought a lot about brain diseases such as sclerosis, tumors etc, but I have had this for five years and I seem to be in fine physical and mental shape. I never have headaches or anything. I have also thought that it might have something to do with the heart or the circulatory system, but again, my body seems to work fine.

Anyone who knows anything or just feel like sharing write me an e-mail.

Best of luck to all of you!

Jonas

this is how you get rid of those buggers wear sunglasses granted you still see them when you take them off but it helps you forget

Hello everyone, I feel I should add my tuppence worth here.

I have been experiencing these white flashes for just over 3 years now. I am quite at ease with them as they do not seem to be causing me any ill effect other than some cheeky glimpses of them throughout the day.

I have looked these flashes up across the net out of curiosity, but other than the general floaters or white blood cells, this is the closest place that these flashes are being descibed, as i see them.

For me, the flashes are more like wisps of moving light. The wisps never appear directly in front of me, they start from about 33 degrees left and right of frontal vission. They last for half second to 1 second, sometimes staionary, sometimes moving. If you look over to where the light is appearing, the cheeky little things vanish like it's a game.

I find it interesting that other people are seeing these white wisps of light too. It also reads that most people started to see these wisps from about five years ago till now. I wonder why we are seeing these?

One avenue that I have gone down when researching these lights is something that austronaughts see.

**--Quote from:http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_cr.htm l
Q. I have also read that different astronauts have claimed to have seen what they believe are cosmic rays when they closed their eyes. These were as brief bursts of light. Is this true?

A. The light astronauts may see when they close their eyes is caused by cosmic rays - but it's produced via a mechanism known as Cherenkov radiation. The particles actually produce the light inside the eyeball.
Dr. Louis Barbie
**--End Quote--

We all know that the earth is changing, the weather is going crazy, the seasons are all messed up. We know that migratory animals are ending up in the wrong place, on the wrong beach or in the wrong land. We can read that our solar system and indeed our planet is being bombarded at the moment by radiation...

**--Quote:http://www.space.com/scienceastr onomy/bright_flash_050218.html
Brightest Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth
**--End Quote--

...arising from the centre of our galaxy

**--Quote:http://www.newscientist.com/arti cle.ns?id=dn7082
A mystery object near the centre of our galaxy is sending out powerful pulses of radio waves.
**--End Quote--

Maybe all this has something to do with the white wisps some of us are starting to see? Maybe only a few of us are intuned or sensitive enough to see these?

I hope that by adding comments about my own experience, it will inspire others to write about any similar experiences they are having. Maybe this is something that can not be explained yet, I do not know!

As I mentioned above, the sprites of light do not seem to be harming me and if they like to play games then that is fine. I like playing games

travis, i am also 16, i have the same problems as you

i'm almost positive that this is a new kind of.. condition, that hasn't been figured out by doctors

ever since christmas, i smoked pot and i did something the wrong way.. i was really stoned, negatively and i was convinced i was dead right there.
the anxiety/panic i had from that night still haunts me at random times in the day.

i've asked alot of my friends about this, they say pot has no effect like that on them

i even went to a doctor about it, told him this and he said it wasn't from drinking or drugs.
he told me it was because of the migraines and stuff my mom had
she only had 4-5 in her life, the visual aura ones
i have had two and they are the most frightening experiences ever.

i had this feeling that he was wrong, he just jumped to that conclusion
he told me it was because of stress and anxiety too.. but thats pretty much just guessing

i am convinced that ever since i have smoked marijuana that i have been messed up with this
almost every night i have been frightened to sleep.. i get that anxietic feeling, its so scary
if anyone knows ANYTHING about this, please message me.. i can't continue to live like it.

but heres the condition
when i try and sleep in the dark i see crazy stuff, i think its just me being really scared, but i'll turn on the tv and see that everything is fine and i'll feel more relaxed.
when i'm in school the lines from my notebook get stuck in my head when i'm copying from the blackboard and it messes me up, and i get panicy.
and basically the visual migraines, i've never had in my life.. i think its because of this.
i can't even sleep over to any of my friends houses without panicing when trying to sleep
almost one to three times a day this bothers me.
even reading about it now gets me panicing, but i want to try and find a solution

take care, we'll all know of this unknown curse some day
-nick

Whoow, aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves when we talk about this phenomenon as some sort of virus.

Umbrella:
Drug induced anxiety is not at all uncommon, I for one got it, and you can find a whole bunch of them on forums etc. If you suffer from anxiety there's like a swarm of symptoms that follows it, so i would rather say that the anxiety make your eyes get stressed out than anything else.

And for everyone else:
Take some friend with you to look at the sky/dark room/white wall and ask them what they see. Probably nothing at all until you explain for them what to look for. Would be surprised if someone said they don't get what you mean. I have thought about this and everyone i ask get what I'm talking about, they just don't make a deal out of it.

Of course high or low blood pressure can make this more apparent, same for stress, but I think the biggest problem lies in the obsessing. Some clever poster before said that we'll just have to stop thinking about it to become unaware of it. As soon as i read about theese "conditions" i saw it everywhere.
Not saying I live up to it but I think "don't worry be happy" should be the motto.

Hi again Travis13,

I found something new the other night. I wonder if it is SkyFish (Rods) that we are seeing?

Have you seen a SkyFish, I came across a video on youtube the other day and after watching it, looked SkyFish up on google.

There are quite a few sites out there with images of SkyFish, I have added some links below to pictures of SkyFish, the first picture really looks like the flashes that I see, and the 2nd pic looks like the wispy, white, sprite like effect that I tried to explain when I wrote you before.

I'd be really interested to know if the pictures below show the same sort of effect that everyone else is seeing! Remember, the pics are stills and usually these whisp of light last for no longer than .5 - 1sec (probably even less than that).

For me, it's spot on. But why and HOW am I seeing this?

Picture 1)

http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!A0!06!C29 CA2836BBA/JamesB1955/EntityRodsPSCA2000/sc rapbookFiles/mailedD51.jpg

Note: I usually only see one of these flashes at any one time. This picture seems to have captured multiple flashes in one.


Picture 2)

http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!A0!06!C29 CA2836BBA/JamesB1955/EntityRodsPSCA2000/sc rapbookFiles/mailedD50.jpg


Please respond.
All the best
B

Hi, I'm 17 and did a search on flashing lights across vision and this forum came up,

I more or less see what others have described but i explain it like snow across a tv just not as intense, I have seen this 'snow' which seems to just "prickle" across my vision my entire life and have seen many doctors and specialist about it and have had no real answers, I was diagnosed with Periodic Syndrome aka Migraine Syndrome and was told flashing lights wasn't
out of the ordinary but the are supposed to go away when i close my eyes nut I see them 24/7 day or night, what ever I look at, blank, complicated, white, orange, it doesn't matter.

I'm really sick of them and they are still a big annoyance in my life and it angers me that I'm not taken seriously about them and when I am no answers arrive -any ideas?-

P.s. not sure if this is related but if i look at sharp objects my eyes sting like they are being stabbed, may be just be in my head but they seriously, seriously hurt.

thanks

You need to quit speculating and see an eye doctor. Even a good optician like Walmart's can give you a pretty good idea what is and is not going on with your eyes.

I have the flashing light problem, which a glaucoma specialist diagnosed as optic migraine.

A few days ago it was acting up so I stopped by Walmart eye clinic for an overdue exam. She said what they most worry about with that symptom is detached retina, so she looked, and she could tell that it's fine.

She originally sent me to the glaucoma specialist because of concern about the size of my eye cup, and this time she sent me back to him because it's grown bigger.

And all this and new eyeglasses prescription that I also needed ran me only $65. And I walked in and she was able to see me.

You don't want ot be speculating about "I think maybe I have a mildly detached retina"! That condition is dangerous and treatable. And maybe everything is fine!

Yours,
Dora Smith

Hey I'm glad that some other people know what I'm talking about! I try explaining it to people and they just look at me dumbfounded. I first really noticed these sparkles like hundreds of the tiniest glitter you can imagine while looking at the sky and other bright surfaces. Sometimes I notice some are bigger than other and streak across my vision like a commet streaking across the atmosphere.

I would love to have an answer to this. Hopefully its nothing harmful. I did notice a higher prominence of them when I was on an SSRI anti depressant. Don't know if its just coincidence or not. Has anyone else here been on any type of MAOI or SSRI.

Updates on this would be awesome! Take care.

Well I can tell you they probly do look like what youre experiencing. However "Rods" a video phenomena that were researched turned out to be bugs and the frame rate of the video created them .