If it makes you feel any better you’ll know when it happens, they increase by a lot. If they increase noticeably you should get it checked out but if it increases so substantially that you’re like man what the hell is going on then you need emergency care, basically, but also you can’t really miss it?

It doesn't do what I see justice. They are often beautiful. When they first occur it causes a blind spot. The zigzags are a rainbow of shimmering color. They go away after a hour or so and I feel lousy if I don't have a headache. If I do get the headache with it I have to find a dark room and try to sleep.

That's the shape. But it's constantly oscillating and the colors shifting rapidly.

Vision gets obscured but for me my visual processing/reasoning gets cloudy too. I can still navigate the world but finding a door handle is difficult.

I get sore behind my eyes after and real tired. Happened a few times in the last couple years, anxiety I think.

Youtube mostly has classix migraine aura but this is close enough if you imagine the zigzag image.

Yeah and it has the best name, Scintillating Scotoma. The first time I experienced one it was terrifying.

I occasionally get them and mine feel more black & white than color, the the jagged shape and the arc around the center of your vision is spot on.

And remember the jagged arc is always in your peripheral vision. You can't look directly at it and study the details because it moves when your eyes do.

I don't know what it was like when my sister was young, but I also got occular migraines as a kid, and it'd be like a static spot in my vision where things just disappear behind it. Once that static appeared, I only had 10-20 mins or so before an awful headache would set off, and I ended up needing meds for it. They went away after 13 though.

Well, yes and no. It's kind of an area you can't see, but it's there. Also, it starts as a small dot and them starts expanding/moving. It's also flashing, kind of like static noise on an old TV. Luckily those things usually last like 15 minutes or so. Still, not a fun experience.

Glad I'm not the only one! I had one a bit ago that was weird. If my right eye could see my right hand but my left eye couldn't, it felt disconnected from me. Like it was someone else's hand. Once my vision came back I still couldn't read for about 2 hours without sounding out each word. Migraines can be wildly scary sometimes.

It is called a scintillating scotoma or ocular migraine. Scintillating is accurate; this clear crescent shows up in your vision and It is rippling with rainbow fringes. It starts off as a point somewhere in your vision, slowly expanding into a visible crescent that continues to expand. After about half an hour the crescent expands beyond your field of vision (FOV). For me it is paired with a loopy slightly lightheaded feeling that goes away with a whoosh once it leaves my FOV.

They are often triggered by bright light and may be correlated with migraines. I’ve had three of these happen but never had a migraine headache afaik.

Edit: clear might be the wrong word? My mind blends it in other than the rainbow fringes, but I think I can’t actually see what is behind the crescent.

No I've seen what you describe. What I see when I'm having one is most often a shimmering electric zigzag. Sometimes it take different shapes and the colors vary. Its always at the edge of my vision and moves when I move my eye. Its better to close your eyes when they are happening. At least for me. I have had them in both eyes at once and its really freaky since normally I only get them in one eye at a time. They don't merge well and the combined blind spots have rendered me almost completely unable to navigate. I've pulled over while driving more than once and waited it out.

I just ignored it, got what i needed from storage

This is the most American Male statement I've ever seen. You probably had a fucking stroke or something bro, dang. Good luck out there, try to take care of yourself.

I had this a few times when I was working an extremely stressful job. Changed jobs and voila! No more ocular migraines. Mine was more silvery and blue than red but otherwise your pic looks just like it.

Same! I was on a road trip in Ireland and it came out of nowhere. Freaked me out. I'd never had one until a few months after my first bout with COVID. Now I get them but usually only if I've not been drinking enough water for a few days, and ONLY when I stand up. It's preceded by a weird sort of throbbing where it feels like sound is turned down in time with my heartbeat.

I read if you see lightning bolts you should go to the doctor immediately.

I'm a little far sighted with perhaps a slight stigmatism. Mine are triggered by the seasons as far as I can tell. I get them mainly when the pollen drops in the spring and when the mold comes in the fall. They were particularly bad last year but some years they are just a minor annoyance.

You can still be dumb if you wanted to!

What was your high score? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTEGOI9Leys

I've had it checked out and it's fine, thanks. That's good advice.

I believe this is another related, simililar, yet technically different phenomenon, with different causal mechanisms, but yes, lets keep adding to the list, lol.

Also, brb, you'll never believe this, apparently my pizza delivery guy's name is 'Hiro Protagonist', he's almost here, and I gotta ask him what is up with that name.

Visual snow is different, it's constant and looks more like tv static or film grain, fun stuff, not.

I mean, now maybe, lol, but I noticed this as a middle schooler, and I was in pretty good shape back then... and I still have the exact same experience to this day, in the right lighting conditions, if I can just sit or stand still and look at a mostly cloudless sky.

Basically, lighting conditions have to be just right to ... basically, allow you to actually see your own white blood cells, in your own eyes, against the ... background/everything you are seeing.

So my guess would be that in the summer, where you are, the ... ambient light of the sky is too bright, it overwhelms this effect, but in the winter, maybe its mote generally humid, or the light is coming through more atmosphere , at more oblique angles, and is thus less intense.

Though if you are also seeing a... black tail, like... they're followed by a black smear or a motion blur or something... that could be something else?

The dots are white blood cells moving in the capillaries in front of the retina of the eye.

From the wiki page.

So, yeah, it makes sense that very similar or even just the same effect can be intensified by all those things you mention, they all alter the motion of blood in your eyes.

As to a big chunk moving?

I am not an eye expert, but I would intuitively think that yes, a big splotch moving could be the retina itself moving... but it could also potentially be something like a clot in one of those capillaries breaking loose... which is probably still bad, but maybe not necessarily as bad?

if they're only dots yours might be the blue field entoptic phenomenon which is different. they're just blood cells flowing before your retina and it's totally normal.

My ex told me to stop calling them floaters because it made her think of poop. Thing is, that's literally what they're called.

They're not a big deal unless you get a lot of them all of a sudden. Then it's an emergency.

In Australia we call them eye snags

Is that from Welcome to Nightvale?