So THAT is what those dots are…
April 14th, 2007“The blue field entoptic phenomenon or Scheerer’s phenomenon is the appearance of tiny bright dots moving quickly along squiggly lines in the visual field, especially when looking into blue light (such as the sky).[1] This is a normal effect that can be perceived by almost everybody. The dots are due to the white blood cells that move in the capillaries in front of the retina of the eye, near the macula.[2]Blue light (optimal wavelength: 430 nm) is well absorbed by the red blood cells that fill the capillaries. The brain “edits out” the dark lines that would result from this absorption. The white blood cells, which are much rarer than the red ones and do not absorb the blue light well, create gaps in the blood column, and these gaps appear as bright dots.”
From wikipedia (thanks to reddit). Stuff like this drove me nuts as a kid, wondering what it was…
Interesting. I never noticed it before. My brain must be good at editing.
I see dots & squigglies all the time…well, okay, not all the time but very frequently.
That’s sure weird. I don’t know if you should tell people that.
I’m w/ K on this one. I remember seeing that shit before drugs!
I just had ‘an episode’ yesterday, after a brief bit of exertion. The ‘dots’ were quite bright and not really squiggling as much as moving in quick arcs. Maybe the temporary increased bloodflow caught my editing circuits unaware?
As a kid, I spent a lot of time looking up and out, especially at the sky (I still can’t stare up into the sky on my back without grabbing onto the grass). I think that is the best way to see these little white dots…they’re usually pretty low key, very dim…but once you’ve noticed them, you look for them afterwards.
a brief bit of exertion huh?
…
what?
I wasn’t standing on one leg…ok, and it wasn’t a bowel movement either! I was boringly at work :)