Ask HN: Teach me something new

Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by mikelevins on Saturday April 30, 2022 @07:43AM (#31215252)

The image you linked is what I'm calling "flickering". My full-blown scintillating scotoma is much more vivid and fully-formed. In the incident I'm reporting, it was a 3D physical-looking structure of triangular prisms made of white light, with zebra stripes of utter blackness sweeping rapidly along them, surrounded by an aura that looked like a cross between the sun's corona and the aurora borealis.

These links are closer to what mine look like:

https://i.imgur.com/mbW2UZY.jpg

https://optometrui.tumblr.com/image/132973031235

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Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by randlet on Saturday April 30, 2022 @09:55AM (#31216104)

Your first link is exactly what it looks like to me (except pulsing/shimmering). I can usually sense it before it starts then it starts as a small aberration and gradually grows to encompass almost my entire vision. Extremely unsettling the first time it happened.

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Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by mikelevins on Saturday April 30, 2022 @11:06AM (#31216594)

Yeah, mine are always pulsing, shimmering, whirling, or moving in some other way--most often more than one way at once. My earliest ones were like a black hole in the middle of my vision with an aurora borealis slowly radiating ouward while color changes whirled around it at high speed.

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Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by scruple on Saturday April 30, 2022 @11:36AM (#31216826)

Fascinating. The first image is exactly what mine look like but I was told (by a doc) that they are ocular migraines.

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Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by mikelevins on Saturday April 30, 2022 @12:01PM (#31216987)

I'm no expert; perhaps when I see those, I'm having an ocular migraine.

If it's actually an ocular migraine (which takes place in the eye) rather than a scintillating scotoma (which takes place in the brain), that's a possible explanation for why I could continue reading. The UK's NHS says they tend to happen in just one eye, so if I was having an ocular migraine, it might have left my vision unobstructed in the other eye.

On the other hand, if that's the explanation, then I would sort of expect to have consciously experienced seeing the book while I was reading it, and I didn't--or if I did, that's not the way I remember it.

Of course, memory is untrustworthy, and it's also possible that the vividness of the ocular migraine might have persuaded my brain to tell me I couldn't see the book even though I could.

So ocular migraine is a solid alternative candidate to explain my experience. If I have another scotoma, I'll see if I can figure out a way to determine which thing is going on. Maybe closing one eye and then the other.

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