[looki]

> However, neural filters only allow a signal to pass to the brain to trigger a conscious response when at least about five to nine arrive within less than 100 ms. If we could consciously see single photons we would experience too much visual "noise" in very low light, so this filter is a necessary adaptation, not a weakness.

Wonder if this is related to what I experience. Visual snow - basically seeing static in your vision, especially at night. I sometimes don't notice it for weeks, but then I just pick up on it again and can't stop noticing. It's still hard for me to believe that it's not normal, given that it happens with any camera ever built, but apparently not many people experience it.

[blocked_again]

Visual Snow is a condition which very few people are aware of (including the doctors). I still remember the day I started experiencing the snow. It was a sudden trigger. I couldn't stop noticing it for an year mainly because I was scared whether I am going to be blind. I went to atleast 4 or 5 doctors and no one found any problem with my eyes and I often got ridiculed by friends for making up something which I apparently don't have according to the doctors. I came to know about visual snow after an year from Internet and I realised that many other people have this and they also had a similar experience as mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f34R3GC5I5k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow

If you are a billionaire you can support the fundraiser for finding a cure to Visual Snow which has only reached 1/5th of it's goal even after 40 months :(

https://www.gofundme.com/visual-snow

[taneq]

Two thoughts, in order:

1) This isn't normal? I get this plus an auditory analogue (imagine an impossibly high pitched sound like crickets chirping) which I've always figured was just what my 'noise floor' sounded like.

2) Why would you see this as something to cure? (Edit: Assuming it's something you only see at very low light levels - if you get it all the time even in bright light then that would be pretty bad.) It's just what you get when your visual system's auto-gain tries to amplify darkness. I'm not sure what else you'd expect.

[blocked_again]

I see it all the time! A couple of years before I could look at the sky in morning or evening and enjoy the clouds. Going to beach and watching sunset was my favourites. Now it's a pain to do the both. I can see star like particles flickering in the sky and floaters. It's also uncomfortable to look at the monitor if the brightness is high. Because of all these visual snow patients also suffer from depression. My vision used to be like watching a movie in Full HD TV before. Now it's like watching a movie in an old crappy tv which is having a bad signal reception.

[smallnamespace]

That's odd, in that I've probably noticed visual snow-like artifacts ever since I was a child, but it never bothered me even a tiny bit.

Couple of personal observations:

- Most of the time I only notice snow or artifacts if I'm consciously looking for them or don't have anything else conscious occupying the brain (e.g. staring at a wall out of boredom, or closing my eyes and still paying attention to visual input)

- Once you start looking for visual artifacts, you'll see them everywhere. Right now if I stare at my ceiling in dim lighting, I see little multicolored 'heat wave' patterns roiling about as my visual sensory system works overdrive to extract more signal that there actually is. I also notice a slight 'ringing' halo around bright objects. But as soon as I try to do anything at all, my brain apparently decides that other things are more important and actively filters all this stuff out

Don't discount the possibility that you're putting yourself in a vicious cycle here:

perception of something wrong -> heightened subconscious threat processing (your brain starts looking for a problem in your visual perception) -> more conscious awareness of visual artifacts -> perception of something wrong

The way to break that cycle is to just worry about more important matters, and it'll either go away by itself or you'll stop caring.

[morganvachon]

> "an auditory analogue (imagine an impossibly high pitched sound like crickets chirping)"

This is tinnitus, something I've suffered from since childhood and it has gotten worse recently after attending a concert and standing too close to the speakers. It does indeed feel like a "noise floor"; in a silent room it becomes overbearing.

[tzahola]

Just don’t pay attention to it. Visual snow is like floaters; both are perfectly normal. Some people notice them and then become obsessed; others barely ever notice them.

[blocked_again]

If you have not experienced it first hand then believe me it's no obsession. It changes your life completely.

Please refer to my comment here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15681108

[oihssovhusvoh]

it's not a disease, it's a normal aspect of vision

[Tharkun]

Could you elaborate on this?

[oihssovhusvoh]

everyone sees visual noise, especially in low-light

[blocked_again]

When you have Visual Snow you see it all the time.

[oihssovhusvoh]

yes, all the time, but more in low-light, that's normal - vision is noisy

[CapsAdmin]

I have constant ringing in my ears, but I'm not sure if this is like the common tinnitus everyone is describing.

It's something that gets much louder if I clench my teeth or stretch my body. I also get the occasional ringing in ear like everyone else does every now and then that lasts for a few seconds. This is much more clear, lower in pitch, comes from one of the ears and sounds more like a sine wave. What I hear feels like it comes from nowhere or in the middle of my head and sounds more like many sine waves phasing and changing at around 12khz. It sounds very "soft" or detailed and I've tried to reproduce it on the computer but it's very difficult as it easily sounds very harsh. (another way for me to describe it in terms of computer graphics is as if it's super-super sampled)

I've read that everyone can also hear ringing when placed in a quiet enough room, but some people can hear it all the time. (like me but it's not really a problem)

So everyone has visual noise and tinnitus but to different degrees, and when it becomes a problem for the person it's classified as a syndrome?

[visarga]

I can hear this ringing all the time, even during a conversation or on the street. I tend to not be aware of it, but when I am, it is ringing loud and clear.

I too tried to describe it - like a waterfall, like the sound of the cathode ray TV set, like the sound of pressured gas escaping from a hole, or just pure sonic pressure. The location of the sound is not in any of the ears but inside the head. When I yawn or when I breath out slowly on the mouth it becomes more intense.

I find it comforting and don't mind it. I even used it as support in meditation (it's called the "nada resonance" in yoga). It's just with me, and has always been. When I found out that not everyone hears it, I was quite surprised.

[GuiA]

Interesting - are you stating that not many people experience the snow, or not many people don’t go for weeks without noticing?

I’ve always experienced it, and remember playing as a kid squinting my eyes really hard to make random colors and patterns appear (the latter often looking like a grey 3D grid deforming over time)

[gonehome]

I'm pretty sure this is normal, but just something most people aren't aware of and it's hard to make people aware of.

I think it's a pretty common thing with hallucinogens like LSD where after the effects wear off people notice the normal visual noise they didn't before and it can bother them.

I see it all the time and also notice it more at night too.

[CapsAdmin]

Looking at the gofundme page posted this seems a bit more than just visual noise.

I was diagnosed with a mild version of schizophrenia and symptoms vary on a weekly or monthly basis. When it's at its peak, my night vision gets really noisy, when I close my eyes it's like I can still "see" based on the sound I hear and when I look at a bright light and look away it's like the motion repeats itself 0.5 seconds later.

And so when I'm more "normal" I have none of these issues. Sure I have some visual noise but it's not comparable to what the gofundme page describes.

[dieterrams]

It's likely that what you're noticing is an artifact of how visual perception works. Even in pitch dark, your brain is still trying to do pattern matching, and because that process of pattern matching results in what we 'see', you are unlikely to perceive perfect darkness.

[cordite]

I thought it was an artifact of how our vision system works, not input to that system.

[jeffwass]

Maybe you're seeing Prisoner's Cinema :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema

[blocked_again]

Visual Snow is a completely different condition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow

[AdamJacobMuller]

I see this. I always assumed everyone did...