Hallucination or something else?

[TruthReflection]

Occasionally, when I turn the lights out to go to sleep, I see strange shadows. I'll be lying in bed looking at the ceiling, and shadows will for from nothing a swirl around and make patterns or shapes/faces. It's so strange to me because it usually takes me about an hour to go to sleep, and these shadows usually appear 5-10 minutes after I turn the lights off. I feel this is too early for any HH, so is it perhaps an eye problem or just my mind turning to mush.

[Alucinor XIII]

If I go from being in good lighting to pitch-black darkness, i kinda get this too. I don't think its a hallucination per-se. My best guess is its just a side affect of the rods/cones switching to "night vision." (I forget whether its the rods or the cones that specialize in black and white, but you get the gist.) It might also be the mind trying to make sense of visual data from the sudden change. Your brain is searching for things to see, so to speak, so its sorta creating these swirls. That's just my completely unfounded ideas though. I really have no idea.

[Woodstock]

I see people and things out of the corner of my eye sometimes, especially with no lights. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you want to then talk to a doctor, they'll know if it's a problem. Just don't take any pills they want to give you and don't take any diagnoses too seriously, a psychologist told me I have bipolar disorder just because I was depressed a couple times.

[Sivason]

I have only met a very few people who did not see colors or shapes in the dark. I even teach a dreamm yoga skill based entirely on this subjecct. Perfectly normal, so don't waste time with a doctor. It seems to be kind of visual noise. The brain has a couple sections that handle the preception of vision. Think abbout the fact that you do 'see' things in a dream. The mind can create a visual field with no outside input. The colors and dots and shadows are like wandering thoughts, in that it is just uncontrolled brain activity. You can actually learn to have an influence on what you see. Another type of visual 'junk' is when the eye still has photo-reactive chemicals floating around from bright lights you saw during the day. That is like when you look at a light bulb and shut out the light. You can then see the shape of tthe light for awhile after.

[TruthReflection]

You can actually learn to have an influence on what you see. Any idea if this applies to waking life, sometimes I get bored and make the walls ripple just by staring at them and constantly thinking that they are rippling Another type of visual 'junk' is when the eye still has photo-reactive chemicals floating around from bright lights you saw during the day. That is like when you look at a light bulb and shut out the light. You can then see the shape of tthe light for awhile after. You mean phosphene right?

[Sivason]

You can definately do some of this stuff while awake with open eyes, just like your thing with the wall. Yes, I have heard others call them phosphenes.