For years, I have been seeing something that resembles T.V. static in the whole of my visual fields, but only in the dark. I hadn't been seeing it my whole life, and I just thought it was normal since it'd been so long and it hadn't gotten worse, or physically uncomfortable. But last February I started seeing it during the day as well. I wasn't sure what was going on, so I went to an optomistrist to get some answers. He had none. I went back to the optomitrist six months later, but he still had no answers. I decided a couple months ago that I would ask about this on Yahoo! Answers.
A nice person replied to me the next day and told me that it's called visual snow, and sent me links to sites about it. One is for people who have it to come together and talk about the subject, and another was a link to a Wikipedia page that explained it. Here's a link to that page. ---> Visual snow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sometimes visual snow looks like sparks floating around or nats flying about. As soon as I found out what my issue was, I wanted to know if anyone had it as well.
So I'm wondering if anyone on here has it. If so, for how long have you had it? Did you get it treated? Has it ever gotten really bad? Does it ever seem to get better at times? I would over all like to hear about your experience with it, because when I first started seeing it during the day, it frightened me. I thought that there was something wrong with me, and I became very flustered and agitated over the situation. Therefore it would be relieving and enlightening, for not only me but for others on this site who might have it as well, to hear about your situation.

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I get something a little like that when I'm very tired, usually if something wakes me up - the kind of tired where you risk falling asleep whenever you close your eyes. Other than that, not had it though. If you're seeing it regularly, you might want to see a doctor (rather than an optician) who could look at any specific factors that might cause it.

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@HumanNoMore I see it 24/7. It seems like stress makes it more apparent. The more anxiety I feel, the more pronounced and less muddled it looks like.

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The most similar experience I have to this would be cloudy vision (when very tired, as HNM said, but also when waking up or moving very suddenly after being still for a while) which is pretty normal. I also have two or three corneal imperfections which I sometimes notice flashing around, or sometimes I can even focus on them if I'm very still. Is visual snow (or your own, at least) something that's only sometimes in focus, or do you see it through your whole field of vision no matter what?

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Well ****, I've seen **** like that before

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I always get this in my bedroom at night. I never really think about it much, and to be honest, I might've gotten it in some other occasions without even noticing. I guess you might see it more if you worry about it, or have stress or anxiety as was mentioned.

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Yeah, I have the whole 'colourful flies' thing as well, on occasion... Although, it's not 24/7 and I also have an odd experience where if I stop focussing my eyes on anything specifically, I see the 'static' too, but usually only in what I would describe as slashes across my vision, accompanied by a weird depth perception thing where - if looking at a wall for example - it will appear to be moving (again, like static), shifting or 'zooming' in or out.

I really don't know what to suggest, but you can at least know you're not alone in having something like this.

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Sounds like the visual version of "Tinnitus" - which is "white noise" in the ears. Tinnitus is usually caused by stress, lack of sleep, overworking, etc. It can be a severe impairment as it is described for the visual snow as well. My suggestion would be to look at treatment of Tinnitus and see if anything of that can be applied. I think there are some alternative medicine treatments for Tinnitus that may also work on that one.

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I'd suggest asking a doctor about it - the wiki page had quite a few things listed that could be a possible cause or related, but it could easily be a stress issue as well.

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Thanks for the input everyone!
I'm wondering whether or not I should ask a doctor about this. It hasn't gotten worse since February, it's not painful, and hasn't caused too many issues for me with my sight.

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I sometimes get the same thing if I'm tired and try to do something in low or poor lighting conditions, so it may have something to do with eye strain perhaps. It looks kind of like a film grain effect, but just enough to notice.

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