Thread: What Do You See When You Press On Your Eyes?

It is so cool that this is a topic here. I was obsessed with doing that when I was a kid. I don't know how good for the eyes that stuff is, but I did it a lot about 30 years ago. I also loved to spin around and get dizzy. Isn't it such a coinidence that I got way into drugs and then lucid dreaming later in life?

I would always see an extremely complex mass of geometric formations. They would move at me as huge cloud that flows with all kinds of crazy shapes. I would sit there and watch that stuff for minutes at a time. So trippy.

Originally Posted by Kyhaar

Do you eat carrots?[/b]

This is kind of off topic, but i can't resist debunking myths like this, as it drives me crazy that people continue to believe them as fact. Anyways, Carrots do not actually do anything for your eyes, and it is really a myth created by the British Airforce in World War II. What happened is the British had some new radar technology thing or something of the sort that helped then easily find German planes during the nighttime, and they started getting tons of kills. They didn't want the general public, or worse, the Germans to know about this technology because they would imitate it and the advantage would be lost, so they made up the myth that their airforce pilots were eating tons of carrots and that was improving their night vision enough to help them see enemies in the dark. Though I am pretty sure there is evidence that carrots may actually do a little bit to help your night vision, it is nothing significant, and the day vision improvement thing is total bogus.

Originally Posted by PenguinLord13

This is kind of off topic, but i can't resist debunking myths like this, as it drives me crazy that people continue to believe them as fact. Anyways, Carrots do not actually do anything for your eyes, and it is really a myth created by the British Airforce in World War II. What happened is the British had some new radar technology thing or something of the sort that helped then easily find German planes during the nighttime, and they started getting tons of kills. They didn't want the general public, or worse, the Germans to know about this technology because they would imitate it and the advantage would be lost, so they made up the myth that their airforce pilots were eating tons of carrots and that was improving their night vision enough to help them see enemies in the dark. Though I am pretty sure there is evidence that carrots may actually do a little bit to help your night vision, it is nothing significant, and the day vision improvement thing is total bogus.[/b]

I was brought up to believe that they helped improve/preserve your night vision... Oh well. They taste good Sugary

Oh geat now my visions gone fuzzy.
But before that its usually white/green sploodges or a fire work explosion of green/red/blue

It might depend on what you saw last.

Right now I see random coloured lines..

The first part always reminds me of zebras. Two circles of alternating circles (like a swirly pattern) with white and black specs as the outline of each circle. After a few seconds, it becomes a 'baseball diamond' with four blue starish looking bases (like this symbol:*) and thin blue lines conecting them, with an orange background.

I used to do this a lot when I was little, thinking that it'd make me see the future.

@Penguinlord: Although the carrot war story may be true, carrots do enhance eyesight, particularly in dim light levels. The liver converts the beta carotene found in carrots to a usable form of Vitamin A called Retinol. Retinol helps to maintain/form (can't remember which) a protien responsible for light perception, and is found on rod cells (which are the ones that function in dimmer light, but cannot see color).

Gotta love them carrots.

So sad, I can't eat carrots the proper way (grabbing a whole one and just munching on it. mmmm)

Curses to braces, but when they are off

Originally Posted by Abra

@Penguinlord: Although the carrot war story may be true, carrots do enhance eyesight, particularly in dim light levels. The liver converts the beta carotene found in carrots to a usable form of Vitamin A called Retinol. Retinol helps to maintain/form (can't remember which) a protien responsible for light perception, and is found on rod cells (which are the ones that function in dimmer light, but cannot see color).

Gotta love them carrots.[/b]

Oh, I guess I was wrong about my facts. I read this a while ago, and I guess I remembered it incorrectly as having no effect. It must have been that there is some effect on eyesight, especially night vision, and it really does help a little, but it is severely exaggerated, and is definitely not enough to make the difference like the British air force said it does. I think that though it may help, it is not a difference big enough that unless you ate piles of carrots, the effect would not be noticeable.

Anyways, to stay on topic I search around the internet for stuff about pressing on your eyes (not much there), and found this. It is a possible explanation for the weird visions

From: craig 19/11/99 15:46:48
Subject: pressing on your eyes post id: 8740

if you press on your eyes, with your eyelids shut, why does a whitish/yellowish blob appear? also, why is it on the opposite side of your vision. eg, if you press on the left side of your left eye, you see it to the right.

From: Michael Gunter 20/11/99 11:02:48
Subject: re: pressing on your eyes post id: 8916
The finger tip distorts the shape of the eyeball. The distortion stimulates the retina inside, and this is perceived as light.

The image on the retina is "upside-down and back-to-front" because it is a simple optic lens, just like images you can make on a wall with a magnifying glass. So when you press on the outside of the eye (away from the bridge of your nose) you "see" strange lights on the OPPOSITE side (near the bridge of your nose).

We have had this before. Might be 1 for the FAQ[/b]

Originally Posted by Folqueraine

I first see grey dots in a "sunflower center" pattern, which spiral... And then bright blue dots appear among the grey dots, dashing quickly towards me (you know, like the "star" windows screensaver). There also like a clear blue "milkyway" but only in my right eye. After some time the dots turn greenish.

I think I fucked up my eyes, it's all blury now.

EDIT: It makes me think of something. Sometimes, when my eyes are open, I see dark grey dots that spiral towards the horizon. It kind of scares me. Does anyone experience that? (it oftenly happens when I'm outside, looking at the sky for instance)

Thanks Folqueraine, you said it for me it's exactly what I see when I press my eyes hard.
I also see a violet/indigo butterflylike thing swirling, with open eyes sometimes, especialy early in the morning on a clear sky. And it's funny that I don't see this image in the centar of my vision but just above it, trying to focus on it gives me a little ache in the eyes and forehead.

I see just plain black with a bunch of random different hues of blue dots everywhere and they appear to have an "aura" around them which looks like that foggy stuff on top of fires.

I see a mild trip of Acid.

When I was a kid I remember doing this alot....I would just sit in bed and press on my eyes until they hurt and would watch all of the swirls or images I saw....mostly it seemed like was riding through a tunnel of crazy lights and images

Swirling blue and grey tornado like things. And skylines of weird cities if I do it long enough.
EDIT: This time I saw a top view of a scarab beetle scurrying through a tiny, swirling vortex.

I see growing shapes and changing designs, ranging from spots to streaks, to flashes and dots, all sizzling around and around, jumping back and forth and shooting across my field of vision. Letting go, things stop, waste away, and a ring of light is left, slowly fading. Pressing my eyes again causes minor pain, but the designs come back with greater intensity for round two.

I see white-blueish lightning flowing, somthing that seems to be a road and som weird faces yelling at somthing

Black and grey and white fuzz

I see a crab with one giant claw that looks like the number 6.

I see flashing stars and a horizon, kind of like looking accross the earth at the ocean from space ^_^

Mine starts with black for a few seconds, then a yellow/orange dot in the center very quickly grows toward me, enlarging and turning into a thick slightly-deformed horizontal line. after that happens i see the tiny blue diamond pattern, but as i focus on it i see that the blue diamonds seem rather to be the background of a tiny sphere pattern. the spheres are green at the top/left and fade into a brown shadow at the bottom/right. as i'm focusing on them, i see spirals of white/pink dots move toward or away from me at random, and many different nameless shapes that are either orange or green that move toward or away from me and leave motion trails.



Folqueraine and ikiRice: I also sometimes get a spiral pattern with my eyes open to, when looking into long distances like skies or far-off horizons. It looks almost like a fractal (most concise way I can describe it), where the inside is spiraling away from me and the outer-edges are spiraling toward me. Its very hard to describe. But it vaguely reminds me of the visualization of time progression from Donnie Darko. I remember once, on acid I cried because I could'nt think of a name for it, or a way to describe it.

That same trip I did the eye-pressing thing, and tried to focus on the whole image instead of certain parts, and I managed to see very colorful swirling and shifting movie-like pictures of many and endless random hippies filling up my vision, walking about the music-festival I was attending at the time. I could never seem to see the same hippie twice.



What an oddly interesting topic.
[Also of interest may be that looking at graphic representations of this phenomenon (many trippy ones can be found on youtube) can sometimes cause the patterns to be superimposed on the visual field for great lengths of time. Especially the black-and-white patterns that move. I try not to look at these for too long, because they last for a long time and can be distracting.]

Well the HI is usualy what I was looking at before I closed my eyes (a light blue rectangle pattern of static slowly morphing and spreading out), then it just stays black with small fragments of light spread out over it sometimes bunching together in random shapes.

i see magenta,orange,bright purple and blue curved lines swirling and moving everywhere on a rust colored background.then if i press harder i get black spots in the outside corners which turn white and produce white/blue lightning that flashes and moves around.

My second try: A saxophone that somehow transformed into a spider.

edit: I noticed a lot of people see colors... Are you guys making sense on what your seeing?

Yes, do this test! It's good for your eyes.. Nothing like a good old press on your eyes until it hurts just so that you can see colours appear infront of you. Oh the mirachles of the human body.

I get colours and images. If I press harder I get a black background with grey and coloured boxes, but then my eyes start bleeding and I have to stop for a while..

I see a blue and black checkerboard which eventually turns in to what looks like white vaines around the outside. :S