What are those little pricks of light you see in perfect darkness?  There seems to be waves of them moving in organic looking shapes and patterns.

 

 

 

Also, sometimes I see these sparks shoot past my eyes after doing intense or sudden physical activity.  They follow perfectly smooth, curved paths and move quickly.  It is not a mass of sparks. . . just one at a time.  They look alot like shooting stars, but obviously are not seeing as I have seen them inside the house. 

 

What are they? 

 

They are actually quite beautiful and want to be able to make them appear on command like an X-Man.  *family drags off to crazy house*

I get them when im tired. Try closing your eyes and applying a bit of presure on them with the ball of your hand (that lump by your thumb) after a while you get a small fireworks display in your mind.

yah. duke, i have done that before. But why does it happen?

I think that is pressure on the optic nerve causing that.

 

I am talking about a couple different things though.

Alt, that is indeed what`s happening

 

pressure doesn`t have to be "direct" (thumbs) either.

Blood pressure can do it also, hence the excersize part causing it

Sparks and comets or streaks are symptoms of retinal seperation also. An opthomolagist will look at your retina and ask you to look in different directions to diagnose it. If he sees tugging on the retina then he'll recommend you get regular checkups and report any serious changes right away. If you get a fold it needs to be treated ASAP cus ignoring it will decrease the chances of repair. I'd go get the simple test.

Just aman

Doesn't really fit perfectly with the thread, but hey, it's eyesight, so I figure I can try it.

 

I've noticed more and more lately that whatever I look at (doesn't have to be a TV screen or computer monitor) seemse to come in as pixels. I don't know, maybe I just never noticed it before, otherwise I really DO spend too much time on the computer.

 

And if you need to know what I mean by pixels in this sense, well, I see little tiny specks of different colored lights that end up combining to make the right color, but not just on the regular things. It's freaky, like I'm living in a computer monitor.

aman said in post #6 :

Sparks and comets or streaks are symptoms of retinal seperation also. An opthomolagist will look at your retina and ask you to look in different directions to diagnose it. If he sees tugging on the retina then he'll recommend you get regular checkups and report any serious changes right away. If you get a fold it needs to be treated ASAP cus ignoring it will decrease the chances of repair. I'd go get the simple test.

Just aman

 

Woot.

 

Too bad it looks so amazing I got them after bending backwards very quickly and to a great extreme.  Why would that cause retinal separation? And, how does retinal separation cause those comets?  Now that I think about it, the patterns looked alot like tearing fabric or bubbling plastic film on, say, a CD that has been heated.

 

Yah, I also was able to recreate them by moving my eyes quickly for a short time after they appeared.  It ended after about 30 seconds though.

that would say blood pressure affecting the Optic nerve to me, but as Aman said, best to get it checked out anyway

The tiny, swimming sparks one sometimes sees is an effect known as 'phosphenes' and is caused by background firing within the optic nerve.

From memory this is assumed to be related to high blood pressure, such as that associated with exercise however is still somewhat of a mystery as they can also appear to those whom are at rest and perfectly relaxed. Ultimately it is not considered to signify any real medical issue, however is a perfecty normal function of the optical nerve.

Certainly the medical students whom may browse the forum should have much more information about it, as mine was gleaned from an MD/BSc from a popular Australian, on-air science forum.