brains, curious, visualization

[wispfox]

When you close your eyes, do you see something?


I was asked this at Thanksgiving, after a long conversation involving face blindness, the fact that I have no visual memory and only vague glimmerings - after a _lot_ of work - of visual imagination. My initial reaction was utter and complete confusion, to the point of asking if the person only asked to get that reaction from me. It was, in fact, a serious question, although the reaction was itself appreciated.

I see nothing at all. I didn't really consider that other people might see something.

Indeed, this makes me wonder if this is why I am so sound-oriented when navigating a dark room; at least some of the other people in the room apparently visualize the room they are in when their eyes are closed. And were, indeed, perplexed when I said that I _listen_ to get around places that I cannot see, in addition to feeling my way. In fact, making noise so other people know where I am actively interferes with my ability to not run into things, because I am no longer able to _listen_. (I can hear when I am near objects because the sound quality changes, especially walls and doors and such. Less so smaller objects, since they are not at my ear height, I suspect, and are less fully encompassing and thus causing echos that I can hear)

Comments

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Neeeeat. Does anything seem to cause them to change how they float/are shaped/etc?

[cos]

It seems mostly random, but they're probably after-images of things I was seeing, because if I was seeing something particularly bold or bright before I closed my eyes it's always clearly present as one or more of those floating light-transparencies.

Edit: Well, some of them are. If I keep my eyes closed for a while I'll see some circles and lines (they sort of resemble what you might see in a microscope, but with a very different color scheme) that are almost certainly not afterimages.