Visual Snow Syndrome - Blog Posts

throwback to when i was like 5-10 and i thought the world was made of spiders because i have a nurological disorder called visual snow (it's where everything has like a layer of static) and its pretty severe, so i thought that one wrong step and the entire world would collapse. and i was scared because i thought that if the spiders started not liking me then they would just like stop being there to form me. and that's why the existence of atoms and how the never actually were destroyed, just moved, made so much sense to me.

As someone with both visual snow and aphantasia. I kind of wonder if one might have an affect on the other.

Sometimes I'm able to "see" some things? but I can't control when that is. usually if I'm dreaming/day dreaming i get a hint. But i'm a very very Visual person. my memory is very visual, my creative process is very visual, my imagination is very visual. but i can't actually see shit in my mind.

so i'm wondering if maybe the little i do get to "see" could be to do with the visual snow? seeing patterns and shapes in that? they're both very interesting parts of my vision so i was wondering if there was any overlap between them in my experience.

idk i'd love to here if anyone else is in the same shoes! It's so cool that both of these things are being talked about more and we can learn from eachother!

That Time I Gave My Philosophy Professor an Existential Crisis

At one point in the online spring semester of 2021, I received an announcement from my philosophy professor at 4am. 4am?!! Apparently, the discussion essay I provided with my perspective on the week's topic of Reality had given him a crisis. at least, a mild one.

I was thinking about that ordeal as I've been working on reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott again (lil shapes society inhabiting a 2D plane?? flat dreams brainrot UH) and the satirical book definitely loves to demonstrate that we can't fully understand true reality or other dimensions as we're stuck to own perspectives. We had covered Flatland in our philosophy class, and I had already been interested in it since 2020 :)

I dug up that year-old philosophy essay and I'm still proud of it, so I shall share it here. Initially I had absolutely-618%-for-sure procrastinated on writing this until the hour before it was due, so there were a few grammatical errors I fixed for its Tumblr debut.

With the context below it might be a bit easier to see why I've been fascinated by the concepts of Flatland and Flat Dreams for those familiar with it, though that stuff is still hecka cool on its own! And hey, if you wanna check out the essay below, maybe it'll give you an existential crisis too (uh kinda hopefully not I guess but at this rate Anything Is Possible)

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Oh man, this week's topic has me so hyped, I've been obsessed with Flatland, the concepts of reality & other dimensions for a while now. I absolutely enjoyed the 2007 Flatland: The Film, it's on YouTube and I highly recommend it :D

As for dealing with the concept of reality....

What if there was something embedded into your experience of reality that you were unaware of? And what if this experience was "abnormal"? 

Enter: positive visual phenomena. Such as hallucinations, palinopsia (seeing images after they are gone), and illusions. But specifically, visual snow.

Wikipedia defines it as "Visual snow, also known as visual static, is a condition in which people see white or black dots in parts or the whole of their visual fields." Nobody knows what causes this static, and it doesn't show up on any type of medical test. Sometimes visual snow can be a symptom of a migraine, or someone might develop the condition of visual snow syndrome and have it forever alter their vision and the way they experience reality. Or, some people might have had this condition placing static over their entire life, and likely don't realize it is abnormal - since it is all they have ever known.

Like me.

I accidentally stumbled across a definition of visual snow in November 2020 from the YouTube channel PsychToGo. (https://youtu.be/NssIITHZ28Y?t=129)

After giving a short description of what visual snow syndrome was, the video noted that "the majority [of those with visual snow] might not even notice it."

I paused the video and thought for a moment. I stared at the white page of my notebook, and yeah - there was a thin layer of static over it. Wait, not everybody sees like this? I just thought it was normal, like eyes not being able to fully process what is in reality around us? I also questioned my awareness of the static, how would I know there was static if this is all I've ever seen? When I was younger, I used to think there was dust constantly floating around a room (but it was static) and when I talked with my eye doctor as a kid about seeing dots, it's possible she mistook my description for floaters and brushed it off as "normal."

My mind was blown and I kept questioning reality - that is, how every person experiences it. The fact that my eyes experience reality in a slightly way than the majority of everyone else is insane. And there is no way for me to experience a visual reality in the "normal" static-free way... right?

Here's an even crazier part about all of this. Several people with visual snow discovered that when they watched television static for a bit and looked away, their own visual snow disappeared temporarily. Sounds counterintuitive, right? Watching static helps get rid of static, even if just for a few seconds? On another YouTube deep dive, I discovered a video of just static for "Visual Snow Relief"

Out of curiosity, I decided to watch it a bit.

After about three minutes of staring at static, I got bored and looked away. AND MY VISION WAS CLEAR. It felt like upgrading from an HD TV or a 4K TV or something - the static was gone for mere seconds and I could see the beautiful, clear picture of the world that everyone else experiences. A glimpse of the "normal" visual perception of reality.

Soon my static came back into view and I was back to my regular visual snow perception of the world. But I got to thinking: What if there was some way we are able to remove a limitation in our perception and better experience reality? We may never know.

oh heck yeah, thank you so much for this info !!

helped me figure out that all i really struggle with is the actual snow effects and sometimes seeing tiny floaters, but thats about it so i’m probably just overreacting over not having perfect vision and at least it isn’t bad enough to the point where it actively disrupts my life. plus, nobody really has perfect eyes so there’s no point in worrying about that,

thank you again, and i hope you have a super cool morning / day / evening 👍

today i have made the discovery that i have been living with visual snow syndrome

like what do you mean not everybody sees really tiny particles and like drowned out shades of colors

also what do you mean that you’re supposed to see pitch black when you close your eyes

if anyone has anymore information on this stuff that be like. super duper cool because a bit of this realization has me going through a mini crisis

today i have made the discovery that i have been living with visual snow syndrome

like what do you mean not everybody sees really tiny particles and like drowned out shades of colors

also what do you mean that you’re supposed to see pitch black when you close your eyes

if anyone has anymore information on this stuff that be like. super duper cool because a bit of this realization has me going through a mini crisis