Talk:Visual snow/Archive 1

Advise questions

umm I would just like to say this snow can let me hallucinate. I can make it form objects and stuff, kinda fun sometimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.123.28.75 (talk • contribs) 00:51, January 31, 2006

It's weird. I always see this whenever it is completely dark and there is absolutely no light. It's like a tv screen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.58.1 (talk • contribs) 17:28, February 15, 2006

I can also form objects/shapes, even people when I close my eyes and concentrate. I don't know whether it's my brain doing it or.. something else. - IanKC —Preceding unsigned comment added by IanKC (talk • contribs) 16:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The above descriptions sound (or look?) more like pareidolia than the phosphenes the article seems to describe in the main. NRPanikker (talk) 02:50, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The pareidolia is likely a "normal" response to the visual snow: making sense of random patterns. Phosphenes are quite different from every day, normal visual snow. Merging this article with the phosphene article is too much lumping. Many sufferers of visual snow have found the name of their symptoms from the Wikipedia article. Also, merging visual snow with phosphenes might confuse the level of analysis that each is it. There is much in the medical literature about phosphenes, but with visual snow, the literature is much more sparse.--AliisaKissa (talk) 01:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have never met a person who I could not get to experience this phenomenon. It seems as if we are not usually aware of it because the brain ignores it (much like we don't usually see our nose or eyebrows until we try to see it.) Furthermore, when I get people to see it I often ask them to close their eyes; in no more than five minutes, vivid images start forming which rapidly develops into a scene which is often compared to a dream. There is definitely more to this that is not being expressed in the article, or it is not being researched. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larzsolice (talk • contribs) 14:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree; its perfectly normal seeing this. Its more like breathing; concentrate and you will see more. Ignore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.57.138.233 (talk) 05:47, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Logical explanation

"However it is also believed that more logical causes such as prolonged use of a VDU or other bright light sources can cause similar symptons, which some believe may be indicating overuse, damage or a weakness of the optic nerve."

I don't see why this explanation is more logical than others, especially since there isn't really any firm data to work with. Since the article already consists mainly of anecdotal evidence and guesswork, I will leave this comment be, but I do consider it suggestive writing. --tijmz 15:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Original Research

I am having trouble picturing the future of this article. The subject deserves a place on Wikipedia IMHO, but it does cry out for original research, something that is frowned up in the general Wikipedia community. Visual snow is unrecognized by the medical community at large and so it is impossible to present a textbook science case.

So what to do? This article should make clear that discussion on VS is largely a thing of discussion boards (a phenomenon in its own right) and should of course include any consensus that exists on these boards. I do not know of any scientific articles, but I think some from the on-line VS community do. These should be cited, of course.

However, expecting the view from the scientific community is wishful thinking. Doctors are working with VS patients, but medical literature about it is scarce. Does this disqualify the ailment from being a Wikipedia entry? Or would enough caveats regarding the patient-side discussion make such an entry possible?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tijmz (talk • contribs) 10:27, April 25, 2006

Response: Visual Snow is very real to the ones who suffer it, and everything real belongs in Wikipedia. It is rather insensitive of you to question it's inclusion. I do think scientific research is needed on VS, however, the absence of such research does not disqualify it from being real. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.173.19 (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

A really, really late response from me, if only to sign it properly. I did not question inclusion (in fact, I stated it should be included) and I don't question its reality (suffering from VS since I was 15 or so). I do think it's dangerous writing an encyclopaedic article about something that has not been researched scientifically yet and I want this article to side-step any POV/original research mistakes that could warrant its deletion by the Wikipedia community. However, it has been progressing fine. Let me applaud that. --tijmz (talk) 00:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I just found the Klaus Podoll site (who I think also edits this page) citing some interesting research. As soon as I can I will check out the papers - I noticed they have not been incorporated in this entry yet. --tijmz (talk) 23:33, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There has been some groundbreaking research of late and the researchers have found the part of the brain where visual snow (and related symptoms) is occurring. I have inserted these into the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EPMD (talk • contribs) 14:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Very Real

At least to those to who can perceive it, it is real. The phenomenon of Visual snow is quite real and often quite annoying. My eye doctor explained it to me as an inability to for my conscience mind to properly filter various electrical activity within either my eye, optic nerve or brain; however complications related to neurofibromatosis could not be ruled out. Bdelisle 09:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Another case

This is a hard topic for researchers to address because it is by definition invisible except to the sufferer. Simply as a way of recording the data somewhere, I'll narrate my experience here. I've had it from childhood (first tried to research into it at the age of 10). There are no "floaters". The effect is that of the grain of a photograph: a small amount of "noise" in the luminance channel only (no chromatic variation). The grain is so fine that it may be the same as the smallest feature size resolvable by the eye: it is more noticeable when looking at something smooth and with no texture. The grain is coarser and the effect more noticeable on darker rather than lighter fields. My guess is that the "not filtering noise" hypothesis is probably correct, but it's hard to divine the source of the noise. Possibly the signal from the retina is always noisy because of the way the retina works? Research would be difficult: how to devise ethical ways of experimenting with a phenomenon that is not objectively measurable and causes no sight impairment to those who experience it? JoeBruno 17:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The visual snow I have is like this. I think it must be something in the brain. My snow is identical in both eyes. If I see a particular bit of static that I can identify, it is the same pattern/whatever in both eyes which would indicate a problem in the brain rather than a problem in either eye or the optic nerves of either eye (since the fuzz should be different if it were a problem with the individual eye). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.51.24 (talk) 01:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It's the same for me: like fine-grained TV snow. The snow is most pronounced in darkness, or when there is only a weak light source in the room, such as a computer screen which is pointed away from me, LEDs, and the like. Especially in that case, I am always strongly reminded of TV images of infrared night vision devices, which produce green-tinted images with pronounced noise. By day, the snow is more fine-grained, and most visible on extended, single-coloured shapes, whether bright or dark. However, in my case at least, the noise is not exclusively in the luminance channel – there is also chromatic variation, though it is most noticeable in deep darkness. (There is a continuum along the lines of what is described in Closed-eye hallucination, however, between waking and dreaming.) I also have different kinds of floaters and know the differences between different kinds of visual disturbances (including, for example, blue-sky sprites, phosphenes, afterimages, and Haidinger's brush). As a teenager, I concluded that the snow is a natural phenomenon and a result of retina cells not always producing perfectly identical results: it makes sense to me that there is some variation not only between individual cells, but also temporal variation within the same cell, accounting for the dynamic nature of the noise. Even slight variations are bound to result in noticeable noise. As an alternative explanation, I would not exclude the possibility that natural, random variations in the firing of nerves are responsible for this phenomenon. It might even be a combination of both. However, other people do not report perceiving similar noise. My conclusion is that the brain usually somehow filters this naturally occurring noise out, only mine fails to do the same. Interestingly, I have always had acoustic "snow"/"noise", as well. It's not tinnitus, although it seems it has become louder over the years: a very high-pitched buzzing or hissing which is also constantly there, although I tend to forget about it whenever there is no total silence – but I can always perceive it when I concentrate. (I know it's not tinnitus because occasionally I also have a kind of tinnitus – a long, high-pitched "beep" in my ear which usually lasts less than a minute or so, and then fades out relatively quickly. This seems to be connected with physical strain, or a circulation problem – when I suddenly rise, for example; in that case I sometimes have a visual phenomenon as well: it looks like bright glitter gliding down outside the focus of my eye, and lately, I have realised that this "glitter" is simply the floaters which are always there, and more visible against the blue sky, or when I squint and push my eyelids closely together without quite closing them, which just suddenly become brighter and more noticeable, reminiscent of phosphenes.)

What may be helpful to you is that this phenomenon led me on the track of autism and Asperger's. I definitely have attention deficit disorder (which would be more properly called "attention control disorder", because there are times when I can concentrate very intensely and forget everything around me, the "hyperfocussing" phenomenon), which is also associated with a decreased ability of the brain to filter less important information out, and as there seems to be a strong connection between attention deficit disorder (especially obvious in the "quiet" variant which is the opposite of the "hyperactive" variant and therefore also called "hypoactive") and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger's (as well as OCD, which may well have the same filtering problem at its base), I suspect they're all manifestations of same basic filtering problem. (Note that I'm not saying that filtering is always a Good Thing, it certainly isn't, and people who pay attention to seemingly irrelevant details and side-issues, and who are ready to leave the beaten tracks, are very valuable and important, but a lack of long-term perseveration even if you desire it yourself is also debilitating. I can't really pursue any long-term projects.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:30, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

New article May 23, 2005

I have replaced the old text by a new one, which presents only views that are based on published sources from the medical literature or from internet resources published elsewehere, so that the article has no longer to be labelled as containing "original research or unverified claims". It now represents a summary of what can be said about visual snow from the point of view of evidence-based medicine. I wish to thank the authors of previous versions for their work; as will be seen, I have not only incorporated a few sentences, but also the general structure of the article from their work.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.130.15.1 (talk • contribs) 10:29, May 24, 2006

Remove of change of text

Someone has made a change of one sentence of the text into the following version: "According to the notion of hallucinatory form constants by Klüver (1942) and Siegel and Jarvik (1975), it can be conceived as a variety of visual hallucinations of random form dimension." I have removed this and re-written the initial formulation. Neither Klüver nor Siegel and Jarvik deal with visual snow explicitly, but one can apply their concept of hallucinatory form constants to visual snow. So, one cannot express it as it has been done in the changed sentence, as if Klüver and Siegel and Jarvik were speaking themselves about visual snow.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.130.15.1 (talk • contribs) 11:49, September 1, 2006

I have posted new sources from muck more esteemed medical literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrishsv1 (talk • contribs) 09:55, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Misleading Example Image

I think the example image is quite misleading, and will probably convince the lay observer that their observations of the blue field entoptic phenomenon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon) is in fact the visual snow effect.

Why the creators of this image chose to display the "visual snow" effect on a blue sky is a mystery. That's the classic place where people notice the BFEP, and especially given the picture captions, seems very likely to mislead. At the least the image creator could have pointed out the fuzziness of the entire visual snow side, and also had an arrow on the normal vision side explaining the BFEP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.115.37 (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. I actually just wanted to suggest using the following image: http://www.migraine-aura.org/site/content/e27891/e27265/e42285/e56897/JG_Rauschen_small_490_en.gif

It show the experience of VS much more clearly. Also, I am sure the website will allow this picture to be used. However, I don't know about Wikipedia policy and animated gifs... tijmz 20:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with this. I nearly was about to diagnose myself with derealization until I saw this Blue field entoptic phenomenon. There should atleast be a mention and a link to that article! Rotorius.kool (talk) 01:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

MS

Someone has added a paragraph that visual snow can be a symptom of MS. I know of no published references for that, seems to be a "myth". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.42.77.84 (talk) 13:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that line there anymore but Optic Neuritis is a symptom of MS, and Visual Snow is a symptom of Optic Neuritis. You're right though, such a stretched connection does seem weird. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.173.19 (talk) 11:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Differentation with "blue field entoptic phenomenon"

I would recommendend a section differentiating "blue field entoptic phenomenon - BFEP" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon), as well as other common abnormalities or disorders with similar symptoms. I would also list the specific symptom criteria necessary for visual snow vs. other visual disturbances, and how they differ. (e.g. is visual snow defined as a minimum combination of known visual disturbances at a set level of intensity, does it include unique visual symptoms, etc.). In addition, I would concur with the graphic comments. The example is very misleading, as it appears to portray floaters and BFEP, which are common visual disturbances in healthy subjects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.158.5 (talk) 01:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Scotoma?

How is this "visual snow" different from Scintillating scotoma? --Una Smith (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

It's different in that it doesn't block the sufferer's view, but is instead all over and mostly see-through. That's how it is to me at least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.189.214 (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional differences are that a) scintillating scotomata tend to be of short duration, while visual snow is constant, and b) scintillating scotomata are well-documented symptoms of migraine aura, while visual snow has an undefined causation as of now (many cases may be additional symptoms of persistent migraine aura without infarction, but we need more research). --AliisaKissa (talk) 01:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

As a sufferer of both since the age of 12, scintillating scotoma and visual snow are easily differentiated. The scintilllating scotoma, as mentioned above, blocks the sufferer's view. It appears as a opaque, visually obstructive, temporary, and short-term aura. It is, for me, undoubtably followed, within an hour of diminishing, by the classic migraine syndrome of unilateral head/face pain, unilateral numbness of hand, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound. Visual snow is a transluscent, persitant, "blanket", if you will, of interference in the visual field. It's homogeneous in composition with evenly disbursed, tiny "sparkles", as I used to describe them as a child, and does not interfere with vision with the exception of being annoying and distracting at times. -Amanda Fleming —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.165.114.26 (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Different name, similar wikipedia article

See also Closed eye hallucination / Closed-eye Visualization (CEV). Level 1 CEV appears to be the same thing as visual snow. Javik (talk) 07:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not the same thing. There is no intent by the sufferers of visual show to percieve the "noise" and it does not disappear when the sufferer refrains from searching for it. Visual snow is a persistant, unrelenting "blanket" over the entire visual field. It can be apparent even in visually complex environments. It is also not necessarily preceeded, and most often not, by chemical stimuli nor meditation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.165.114.26 (talk) 04:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Why is it being suggested this be merged with Phosphene - if you are arguing that any light seen in the vision without light entering the eye is 'Phosphene' then surely Migraine Aura also needs to be merged. This is a specific medical condition, phosphene is a general phenomenna and therefore these articles should stay seperate on grounds of subject difference. Another reason that they should stay seperate is that this article is one of the few on this wiki that can actually be said to make some sort of positive difference to people, rather than just instill them with knowledge. Many people who suffer from VS will spend ages searching to find their condition, and replacing this article with a redirect to something completely different to VS will leave them searching. At least when the article is there, those who see an opthalmologist and are told 'its proably something to do with migraine' may find the Visual Snow link on the migraine page and discover that they are not alone - a great releif to many. As such on moral/ethical grounds the article should not be merged. Of course, you objective encyclopedic documentation types dont care about positive differences, your purpose is to document world phenomena. This is a medical condition suffered by many hundreds of people and exists in an objective reality, it is even recognised by (and occasionally, suffered by -ah, poetic justice) the odd neurologist/neuro-opthalmologist/other medical proffesional. Therefore on objectivity grounds the article shouldn't be merged. I see no discussion on this talkpage on the merge, it seems to me someone has just slapped the merge template onto it without any attempt at consultation. Perhaps people should seek to gain understanding before deciding what is the same as what. Anyaways, i concur - flame.--217.43.13.55 (talk) 18:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I will take the lack of any sort of comment to mean "yes, this article should definately not be merged" and remove the template--217.43.13.55 (talk) 17:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The two are definitely not the same thing. There *may* be a physiological connection in theory, but I have zero references to support that supposition. They should definitely be kept seperate. 216.197.177.151 (talk) 17:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC) (I should really investigate single sign on tecnology, I'm travelling and don't have my account details with me. I'm a rare occasional contributor of small changes and snippets).

Some original research...

http://www.visualsnow.com/information/research/pdfs/jager-cephalalgia-persaura.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.155.42 (talk) 13:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Goadsby and Dr. Schankin from UCSF are 100% committed to this research, and are very motivated to help find the cause and hopefully a treatment plan.

To participate in this Visual Snow study you must:

1) Suffer from 24/7 visual snow 2) live in the U.S. 3) Be willing to travel to San Francisco for testing 4) complete a short, very simple phone interview to determine if you are eligible 5) Must be between the ages of 18 - 55

Contact details for the study can be found on http://www.eyeonvision.org or contact the doctors directly at VS-Research@Neurology.ucsf.edu

These doctors 100% believe in this condition, and that is a great comfort to many patients. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.189.70 (talk) 17:54, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

What are all the various medical terms for the heart rate and blood pressure that the medical research might be classified under?

(Skip this paragrah if you don't want to hear a personal experience) I had visual snow all the time when I was a teenager, whenever I got up from the couch after watching tv for a while. I thought it was normal! I just bent over for a few seconds until it cleared. As I got older (20s) it went away. I never have it nowdays (30s). ONCE, when I was 24 or so, it happened while I was standing in line in a cafeteria, and I lost my sense of balance and stumbled backwards and collapsed. (someone with good reflexes caught me). I did not lose consciousness. I was on campus and so security took me to the hospital, where the Drs. insisted on doing tons of tests and waiting for the results. They found nothing. And nothing I described in my medical history nor what I had done or eaten recently made them think of anything. That's the only time in my life it has happened while already standing. And that has never happened again. The Drs at the time said it was just a medical mystery, the body suddenly and for no known reason lowering the heart rate and/or blood pressure.

So this brings up a useful point. I betcha "visual snow" is simply a symptom of a very specific medical thing (sudden unexplained temporary drop in heart rate and blood pressure), that the medical community has researched. Do we actually now of all the medical terms it may have been described as in literature? I've discovered recently that Doctors are VERY lacksidasical about the terms they use to describe something. They say one thing and it sounds specific, and then you go online and search and you find out that it's just a vague term that could be used in a half dozen things. gastro-jujenectomy. ANYTHING to do with the stomach and the jujenum. Could be connecting one to the other. Could be a tube run from outside the body into the stomach and down the duodenum into the jujenum. Who knows what else.

216.197.177.151 (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

HAH - okay, we should probably merge this page with this one: Orthostatic_hypotension Or at least link to it within this page. Because I'm certain that visual snow is caused by orthostatic hypotension. 216.197.177.151 (talk) 17:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't. It may be the case that your VS was related to blood circulation. After more than 15 years, I can say with confidence mine isn't - and from what I get from the forums and Facebook community, posture or blood pressure has not shown up as a relevant factor for a number of people. Also, I vote against all speculation on causes, including this one (but that's a fight I'll never win). --tijmz (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Related symptoms citation

I don't know how to edit the wiki appropriately, but the citation needed for tinnitus and the depersonalization comments in the related symptoms section can be found on http://www.visualsnow.com/ which is one of the links at the bottom of the page. 65.207.54.194 (talk) 15:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Subjective, but appears commonly experienced

It appears this article will always be tagged as Original Research. It is impossible to share in the internal experiences of another person's brain/mind. We can only objectively document things that are physically external to ourselves, and this is entirely an inner experience.

Even if there were an external cite for the subject from a medical textbook, it still ends up being someone with a medical diploma sitting around and trying to describe internal perceptions they experience, that no one else can verify as real. Is the scholarly diploma-bearer's self-documentation of their experiences somehow more reliable, than the opinions of some random person off the street editing this article and describing their own experiences of it?

For articles like this, the idea of a disconnected impersonal application of scientific method and measurement falls flat, and this is just how it will always be. We can not separate what is being observed from the observer's own mind, and it can not be independently verified. DMahalko (talk) 06:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem is not that the subjective cannot be researched (I think psychological sciences can move beyond black box approaches - in fact, I am sure that they have during the last decades). The problem is that this particular condition is simply not well researched. That means all standards of science fail and we should be careful not to fake being knowledgeable on the subject. I know this is a sensitive issue, I have suffered terribly from visual snow myself and know the community. However, right now we do not know what VS is. At all. We shouldn't even pretend we know symptoms and associated states. This entry is original research because it is mostly an assembly of self-diagnosis. --tijmz (talk) 21:59, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I hope this article never goes away, even if it is always marked as original research. I first experienced visual snow when I was about 5 years old. I can remember the day it started vividly, and how my parents made fun of me when I told them I saw spots in my vision. I never told anyone else about it for nearly 20 years. I never spoke to a doctor, even though I have now had a persistent static in my vision at all times for more than twenty years. I had no idea other people suffered the same thing. But having this wikipedia article was a godsend, even if it is something I end up suffering with in perpetuity, if only to know I'm not alone and that other people experience the exact same thing. 65.207.54.211 (talk) 19:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The page will remain on Wikipedia for some time, I am sure. Thanks to Klaus Podoll, we even have some independent sources to work with. Still, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which is not a place for original research, but a place to summarize scientific knowledge. There's little science on the condition, so the article will be small. Let's all watch out for speculation and anecdotal evidence. --tijmz (talk) 22:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

One eye or both eyes?

I'm wondering if this can occur in one eye alone or does it always happen in both eyes to the same degree?

My personal experience is that I've only had a few occasions where I was affected, and all where in very dark situations where I rationalized it as my eye not adjusting fast enough. It only happens in one eye - the difference is so staggering it's like I'm looking through a thin veil in the affected eye. It usually goes away after a couple of minutes, and it hasn't happened in a well lit environment. It is very much like the effect seen on a digital camera when the lighting is too low. I think this may be due to an optic nerve anomaly because I also notice that my pupils are different sizes in dark lighting. I went to an eye doctor who ran several tests including MRIs and they couldn't find anything wrong in my eye or brain. They mentioned that nerve damage could be causing my pupils to be different sizes and I'm wondering if that plays some sort of role in causing the visual snow effect. Lime in the Coconut 14:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears to have some relationship to dominant eye phenomena. The visual field of one eye is being suppressed as "less reliable" by the brain, so what else is there to "see" if the visual field is being suppressed. Well, nothing. Or random noise anyway. I can only state my own subjective research into my own vision, that my right eye is dominant and the left eye is suppressed to a certain extent.

Field Report: Closing my right eye, it is cognitively difficult to edit this text and there is a pointillist flickering/moving grayness/blackness that battles for dominance over what I see with my left eye.

Field Report: Basically, the right eyelid is closed and but that does not "turn off" the right eye. Instead the right eye is simply "looking at" the blackness of the right eyelid, and since the right eye is dominant, the blackness that the right eye sees is trying to override the visual field that the left eye is actually seeing what I am editing.

Field Report: This difficulty of seeing with the left eye with the right eye closed is cognitively annoying because I am I am aware that what the left eye is seeing is generally focused and clear, yet the moving/flowing grayness/nothingness competes to wipe out and blot out what I am seeing even as I am actively trying to review what I have written. Words are vague and indistinct and I cannot really even clearly see the letters appearing as I type them.

Field Report: Dominant eye phenomena can be overridden by wearing an eye patch over the dominant eye. This forces the brain to rely on the less dominant eye, and to rewire to actually rely on the suppressed eye... though this is of course an annoying experience for the person undergoing this trewatment since they are half-blind in the supprssed eye at the start of treatment.

Field Report: (The annoying bit here is that Firefox has underlined "Treatment" and "suppressed" in the previous sentence as misspelled, but with my left eye alone, I can only make out that there is a word there, underlined, that looks like "trsdgsgnt" so I cannot fix the spelling looking at the test from 3 ft away.)

Field Report: The gray pointilistc visual snow is no longer blanking out the visual field after some 5-10 minutes but now appears with the same visual "clarity" of the visual field, so it is like looking at sesame seed cake batter smeared across my visual field, and making out indivudual words is very difficult.

Well enough of that. *opens right eye* :) DMahalko (talk) 16:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Defined by severity?

I'm confused. I had never thought about this until now, but there is always "noise" wherever I look. More obvious against white background, in the dark, or if I close my eyes. Isn't that what everyone sees? I just figured we all had background noise. Is this article about where the noise is so severe is affects vision? Or are you telling me that some people can look at a white wall and see only white, with no noise? 144.32.126.12 (talk) 12:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The noise is abnormal. People without visual snow see a clear image. LawrenceMaynard (talk) 03:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a contradiction here. If CEV 1 is normal and everybody has it, like it's said in the article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_eye_visualizations , then "visual snow" has to be more severe so it becomes evident even without looking for it, or the visual snow sufferers are just normal persons obsessed with their normal visual noise that therefore look for it and manage to overlay it into the physical world, like the quoted article says. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.57.130.44 (talk) 01:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The article you've linked to does sound sensible. So everyone has a degree of noise, and this article is about those who either have more severe noise, or can't ignore it (presumably it's impossible to test which). I asked the original question because I think that it is an important point to make in the article, as it currently implies that ordinary noise is abnormal (and could even be MS!). Maybe I'll be bold... Probably not though. 144.32.128.73 (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not certain if what I have is Visual Snow or not as I'm not a doctor or expert in vision, but it matches the general description. To be totally unscientific, and go on personal data, for the sake of (possible) clarification, I've always seen static when I close my eyes, as per normal, but I only started seeing something that matches the definition of Visual Snow with my eyes open in the past couple of years. I used to be able to look at a plain wall and have it look absolutely plain. Raine (talk) 22:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Visual snow is very different from closed eye hallucination. Similarly, everyone hears a ringing in their ears in certain circumstances, but tinnitus is a different phenomena entirely. It's not just a more severe form of the normal ringing, it's a disorder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.39.134.130 (talk) 21:23, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

What do with the contradiction that CEV 1 is normal? Then visual snow should be described on how severe the symptom is, since everyone has this to some degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrishsv1 (talk • contribs) 09:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Thermal Activation

Another possible cause is thermal activation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.200.60 (talk) 18:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

So what is the consensus? What should we do with the article?Millertime246 (talk) 02:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

A price for night vision?

I have been in the suburbs at night with several friends and noticed that those, who perceive visual noise in the darkness also could see more stars and have generally better night vision. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.252.115.250 (talk) 15:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't tally with my own experience as a visual snow sufferer. The noise actually makes it very difficult to see, and to find the edges of objects, in low light. LawrenceMaynard (talk) 11:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

EL order

A reader associated with the yuku forum, which is a forum related to the study of visual snow, notes that the external link to the forum was moved from the top or near the top of the list to the bottom. It is now third from the bottom.

I reviewed WP:EL and did not see general guidance on how external links should be sorted. In the absence of community guidance, it presumably is up to the editors of each article to determine the order.

Does anyone have any opinion on what the order should be of the external links to this article?--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Wiki page being used as platform for forum attack.

In the past the original Visual Snow forum, (as well as its users and admins) have been repeatedly attacked. Any dissenting opinion about the nature of this condition, about which very little is known, is vehemently opposed to the point where many people have been driven from the site and had their voices silenced by these ass-wipes. Multiple accounts have been created to bolster this aggression and to appear as a majority to sway public opinion before the facts are in. Any external links to the original Visual Snow forum which have been possible to be tampered with have been deleted, and currently this wiki page is being utilized as a weapon to attack both the site and myself personally...

(again)

I don't really care which particular order the links are preserved in, although I believe that length of time since original posting should be taken into account.

Is there any way to lock this link against future tampering? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2fries (talk • contribs) 16:06, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Can Visual Snow be a result of extended (computer) screen reading?

I'm taking about people who wake up in the morning and spend the entire day in front of their computer, mostly reading (e.g. wiki, forum posts, newspaper articles, etc.) rather than relaxed and playing video games or watching movies.

On a similar note, have people who have recently contracted VS (rather having it since their childhood) also experienced reddishness on their sclera (white of the eye) or a reddening of the conjunctival sac (lower eyelid) as was the case with me when I contracted VS? My doc told me the combination of hours worth of computer expose, combined with the fact that I don't blink frequently enough, and reduced tear production in the eye lead to the reddishness and VS. Please note that this is pure anecdotal "evidence"... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8388:502:3D80:71E4:75DE:11A9:E465 (talk) 00:15, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Dead links to Visual Snow sites.

The external links to; "VisualSnow.eu is a site designed to be a database to help people out with this condition" "German Website for those with Visual Snow" "Persistent aura without infarction"

...are defunct.

The link to; "Internet Resources For Visual Snow Patients"

...is merely a duplicate of the; "Fundraising for visual snow research" link.

If there are no objections I will delete this garbage... like soon-ish since nobody else seems to give a shit.

visual snow is normal

This article is scaring many of my anxiety patients, they belive they have this "syndrome" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow Some of the worlds leading experts on our visual system say that this visual noise is normal. I want the article to reflect this. Patients with visual “snow” have normal equivalent input noise levels: https://psych.nyu.edu/pelli/pubs/raghavan2010arvo-snow.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Pelli - professor behind the view that: The visual-snow symptom is luminance-dependent, but is not a result of increased levels of intrinsic visual noise. Our measurements show that visual-snow patients have normal equivalent input noise, normal contrast sensitivity, and normal high-noise efficiency. Their only abnormality appears to be an increased perceptual gain, i.e., an intensified experience. This article from Harvard explains that: The intrinsic dark noise of primate cones is equivalent to �4000 absorbed photons per second [17]; at mean light levels below this the cone signals are dominated by intrinsic noise: http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/DunnRieke2006b.pdf The page should reflect the controversy, and the fact that the medical community does not render this a medical condition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrishsv1 (talk • contribs) 09:49, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

External links

This section was stuffed full of inappropriate links. Having removed one external link already used as a reference and one internal link duplicated in "See also", moved one potential reference to Further reading, and removed the adspam, blogs and facebook pages per WP:ELNO, there was nothing left. --RexxS (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Four external links and one internal link were restored without reason being given by 2fries (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), a single-purpose account with a history of edit-warring on this article. These are the links and these are the reasons why they should not be in this article:

1. Fundraising for visual snow research - A fundraising site: WP:ELNO no.4 ("promotion"), no.2 ("unverifiable research") and no.1 ("does not provide a unique resource").
2. Original visual snow forum - A forum: WP:ELNO no.10 ("chat or discussion forums/groups").
3. Persistent aura without infarction - An internal link, already present in See also section. WP:CIR.
4. Parents of Children Experiencing Visual Snow - Facebook: WP:ELNO no.10 ("Social networking sites (such as Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram)")
5. Visual Snow Blog - Facebook, Blog: WP:ELNO no.11 ("Blogs, personal web pages and most fansites")

Note that the exception to WP:EL #EL11, "... except those written by a recognized authority. (This exception for blogs, etc., controlled by recognized authorities is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities who are individuals always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for people.)" cannot apply here as the author is not a recognised authority in Wikipedia's terms, as they are anonymous. --RexxS (talk) 21:25, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

External link removal

External links to public discussion forums are an important addition to this page and accounts for how most Visual Snow experiencers find their group in the first place.

I object to the removal of the original VS forum and notice that other conditions such as HPPD have external links to public forums on their page.

As admin for the site you've subtracted I would like this decision reviewed by someone who isn't so trigger happy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2fries (talk • contribs) 22:15, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Take it to WP:3O or go read WP:DR and make your mind up from that. I take it you have read Wikipedia:External links and have some solid policy to support your objections? You can be certain I'll be contesting any attempt to replace those external links and I'll quote the guidelines supporting that, just as I have above. Of course, you'll be wasting your time and mine: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a free advertising site for support groups, no matter how deserving a cause they may be. And if you call me "trigger-happy" again (see WP:NPA), I'll take steps steps to see your editing career at Wikipedia comes to an abrupt end. --RexxS (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I fail to see how trigger-happy is a personal attack but alright, fair enough, you have my apologies. The site has been under repeated attack since I took over as admin and this just seemed to be the next in a very long line of them. Honestly no, I haven't read through all of the rules on editing but will do so. As far as I can tell this external link has existed pretty much as long as Wikipedia has and I was just trying to undo what I considered to be vandalism.

See, here's the thing. The Yuku visual snow forum is the 'original' internet source on the topic of Visual Snow founded by George Farmer. This quote: "Only recently have Internet forums for those suffering from persistent 'visual snow or static' attracted researchers' interest in this rare migraine complication."

(Podoll and Robinson. Migraine Art - The Migraine Experience from Within, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California 2009, p. 233"

http://www.migraine-aura.com/content/e27891/e27265/e42285/e42288/index_en.html

...is from one of the very few doctors actually studying the condition and supplying the information cited in this encyclopedia.

"All" of the information on Wikipedia about this topic stems either directly or indirectly from this original Yuku forum, it's users, and their efforts. I find its removal reprehensible at best and misinformation at worst.

I urge you to check my words and reconsider so that I don't have to take it to WP:3O. There are exceptions to every rule and this should be one of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2fries (talk • contribs) 03:46, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@2fries: Thank you for your apology: it is appreciated - let's try to keep our debate focused on the content, not the editor, please. The thing about external links is that we have to be strict about what we link to as external sites (and by 'we', I mean the community of editors of Wikipedia, of which you are one). If you find the time to read our guidance at WP:External links, I'm sure you'll understand better why I felt it right to remove all of them from this article. I hope you can appreciate that I'm not singling out your contributions, it's just that we build our encyclopedia by writing content, not by directing viewers to external sites, unless there's no alternative and the content of the external site is needed to improve the reader's understanding of the topic. Have a look at this from the opening of WP:EL:

• Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.
• Some external links are welcome (see § What can normally be linked), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link.
• If the website or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. Guidelines for sourcing, which include external links used as citations, are discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Citing sources.

So here's what I suggest: if you want the external link principally because it drives traffic to an external site, forget it, because the editing community won't accept that. If you want the external link because it's essential to explain a particular issue that's important in understanding the topic, then you need to recast it as a source and cite it along with the source that explains why it's important. You'll want to write something like this, perhaps in a History section of the article:

• In 2001, George Farmer, who experienced the symptoms of visual snow, created an Ezboard internet forum (in 2007 upgraded to the Yuku format) which is credited with raising interest in research into visual snow.

References

Something along those lines would put the forums into the context of the article and explain to the reader why they are significant. Do you see the difference, in the context of our guidelines on external links? --RexxS (talk) 12:03, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Damn I'm glad that you're an actual rational human being and not one of the trolls I usually have to deal with. I am sorry that I took your deletion as just another attack.

I will do exactly as you've suggested, but I doubt it will stick. I'm no Wikipedia editor. This page specifically is the only thing I've ever touched here, and then only to try and set things right. I had never even questioned the validity of the Yuku link because it has been part of the external links section of this page since before I even discovered the words visual snow and I was just returning it to its place. It is certainly not the first time I've had to do so either.

It has nothing to do with foot traffic, (I don't make a dime from trying to hold the site together), it has everything to do with a wider dissemination of information that hasn't been 'spun'.

Truth be told, all of the previous admins as well as any member of our forum claiming to not "suffer" from experiencing visual snow were victimized and hacked to the point of leaving. The site was going to be deleted so I stepped up and let the trolls fling their shit at me so that the information and right to speak freely about this condition would remain. The forums and this page are being used to obfuscate information and sway both public and medical opinion to the point where suffering is the only side of this coin being displayed.

I am not a computer guy, I'm in way over my head and learning as I go. I'm just the guy who got left holding the bag after the troll bombs stopped dropping so I appreciate any actual help I can get.

If you're a straight shooter... then trigger-happy is a compliment from me.

Causes

The opening paragraph of the Causes section is entirely sourced to a single study, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/head.12378/abstract which is based on "a prospective semi-structured telephone interview" with a sample size of 120, and a PET scan. I don't believe that including so much of a primary source is due weight for a section dealing with the causes of a medical condition. The text is this:

In May 2014 the results from the first major research trial into visual snow were reported. The study described strong evidence from positron emission tomography scans that the disorder is associated with hypermetabolism in the right lingual gyrus and left cerebellar anterior lobe of the brain. The researchers stated that pinpointing visual snow (and its related symptoms such as afterimages) to a functional problem in a specific brain area may open up possibilities for targeted treatment and that treatment trials will follow.

References

I propose that the above text be removed from Causes which needs to be sourced from a WP:MEDRS-compliant source, preferably a good quality review. It is possible that the study might be suitable for inclusion in a Research section, but it certainly is well short of what Wikipedia requires to support content dealing with causes. --RexxS (talk) 23:42, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Not sure why this

"Albert Rose (physicist) (30 March 1910 – 26 July 1990) was an famous American physicist, who made major contributions to TV video camera tubes such as the orthicon, image orthicon, and vidicon. He explains "visual snow" is in his book Rose, Albert (1973). Vision - Human and Electronic. Plenum Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780306307324. The hole chapter 2.9 is dedicated to the subject. "As we have continued to emphasize, our visual information..." a few hundred more words from [1]

I assume the quote is the whole thing? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:29, 18 April 2017 (UTC)