Visual Symphony

Have you ever noticed something floating in your field of vision?

It can also look like a small insect or a transparent blob that disappears every time you try to look at it up closely and reappears as soon as you change your line of sight.

However, do not wash your eyes.

What you are seeing is a common phenomenon known as floaters.

The scientific name of these objects is Muscae volitantes, which means "flying fly" in Latin But as the name suggests, they can be a bit annoying.

But they aren't bugs or external objects.

Rather, they exist in your eyeballs.

Floaters appear to be alive because they move and change shape, but is not.

Floaters are small objects that cast shadows on the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

It could be tissue debris, red blood cells, or protein clumps.

And because they float in the vitreous humor, a gel-like fluid that fills the inside of the eye, they float as your eyes move, and appear to bounce a little when your eyes stop.

Floaters are usually difficult to distinguish.

The closer you are to the retina, the more you can see.

Like moving your hand closer to a table with an overhead lamp, the creates more sharply defined shadows.

and float is especially noticeable when looking at uniformly bright surfaces, blank computer screens, snow, or clear skies, or other locations that are easily distinguished by the consistency of the background.

The brighter the light, the more the pupils constrict.

This has a similar effect to replacing a large diffused light with a single ceiling light bulb, with shadows appearing more clearly.

Floaters, there is another visual phenomenon that is similar to but is not related.

If you have ever looked at a bright blue sky and seen tiny points of light flying around, you have experienced the so-called entoptic phenomenon of blue fields.

In a way, this is the opposite of developing floaters.

You can't see the shadow here, but you can see a small moving window that lets light through the retina.

The windows are actually caused by white blood cells that migrate through the capillaries along the surface of the retina.

These leukocytes can become so large that they almost fill the capillaries before the plasma space opens up.

Both space and white blood cells are more transparent to blue light than the red blood cells that normally reside in the capillaries, so wherever this occurs, the light that follows the path of the capillaries and travels with the pulse. You can see the dot.

Under ideal viewing conditions, you might even see what looks like a black tail after the dot in.

Red blood cells that accumulate behind white blood cells.

Some science museums have exhibits made up of blue light screens that allow you to see these blue objects more clearly than usual.

These types of effects occur in every eye, but their number and type vary widely.

Floaters often go unnoticed because our brains learn to ignore them.

However, an unusually large number of floaters or large floaters that affect vision may be a sign of a more serious condition that requires urgent medical attention.

But most of the time, entoptic phenomena like floating creatures and blue sky spirits are a gentle reminder that what we think we see depends on our biology.

Just a reminder and minds

as it does on the external world.

Thanks for the time you invested educating yourself. Hope it was an interesting read. Looking forward to seeing you here again.