What are the color dots you see when you close your eyes?

Question

i see diffent colors and shapes swirling around. but what are they really called or like what do scientist say about them?

Answer 1

Mine are whatever i want them to be if i picture it in my mind i see it :-)

Answer 2

These are called hypnogogic images.

Answer 3

i see white big ones and sometimes they have a verry small amout of light green to them...idk what they war called

Answer 4

mine are green, red, blue, a bunch of colors. i thought i was the only one!

Answer 5

There's a few different theories out there.  But the general term is Entoptic phenomenon, which means an image caused by the eye itself, but more specifically a phosphene, which is something that looks like light when no light is entering the eye.

One theory is that the lights you see are mechanical.  As in, the pressure of your eyelids closing stimulates the cells of the retina (the light-sensitive part of your eye), to perceive light even if it's not really there.  Your eyes should quickly adapt to the pressure of the eyelid, and that should cause it to lessen over time, but seem quite sudden when you first shut your eyes.  If you push on your eye with your eyes closed, the cells should be stimulated even more to "flash" lights, even though there's no light actually there.  And then again, if you move your eyes, the pressure on them by your eyelids becomes apparent again, and stimulates the flashes.

If you see the shapes after you've stared at something for awhile, you might be experiencing a phenomenon called a "negative afterimage."  This is most noticeable when you stare at a single image or color for a long time; the cones (color-sensing cells) in your eye become tired and when the image disappears the cells around the tired cells fire strongly that "hey, this color is here!" but the ones that were tired are still tired and don't fire and it makes your brain see an image that's a color-opposite.

Another idea is that it's a function of persistence-of-vision.  Meaning light travels at 186,000 miles per second, and the chemical reaction that occurs from eye to brain is a lot slower, so it takes a bit for your brain to figure out what the heck is going on.

Yet another idea is a little out there, it's called chimerical colors, and it's something along the lines of there are a ton of colors out there that we can't / our eyes are not adapted to see, and when you close your eyes, you see these colors because the other things you normally see fade out.  Something like that.

Some people also believe that you're looking at your chakra, or aura.  That's even more out there, I suppose.

Anyway, there's not a ton of research done into the phenomena, as it doesn't seem to bother most people, so there's not a whole lot of reason to understand it.  But there you go, five theories which might be more or less appropriate to you depending on exactly what the colors/shapes are to you and how they persist over time.