Floaters, Tinnitus, and other sensory phenomena

[backstept]

I have floaters. Part of the fun of cloudwatching in summer is seeing them float around. I have a pretty prominent floater in my left eye that generally stays in the same place, and is generally easy to see. It's roughly where the top rim of my glasses is in my field of vision and it slides back and forth when I move my eyes quickly from side to side.
it's not so bad as to be horribly distracting though . . .

I probably don't have tinnitus but I wouldn't know since I hear the constant background noise of computers and CRT screens here at work

also I've noticed that I have a limited synesthesia when viewing looping images like some avatars. I don't taste colors or smell music, but it's more like I imagine a sound to go with the motion of the image
. . . so probably not 'real' synesthesia

anyone else have wierd sensory things happen to them?

 

[ITL]

I've had floaters in my eyes since I was a kid - at one point, some were scraped off from one eye by a man with a scalpel (I assume he was a doctor ) and I had to wear an eyepatch for a while. The floaters came back, and there they stay.

It's weird how you can forget about them and blank them out for a while - but as soon as you think about them there they are.

 

[backstept]

yikes! I think you had something different back then
the floaters I'm thinking about are bits of protein in the fluid in your eyes that are sometimes visible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floaters

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I have floaters.

Flush the toilet then!

 

[ITL]

yikes! I think you had something different back then
the floaters I'm thinking about are bits of protein in the fluid in your eyes that are sometimes visible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floaters

Yup, that's what I have. But the scrapeable stuff may not have been, by the look of it...

 

[Haytil]

So THAT'S what they are!

My girlfriend doesn't believe me when I tell her about them - she thinks I'm seeing things that aren't there, rather than something on the surface of my eye. I always thought they were little single-celled organisms and bacteria on the surface of the eye, that were in just the right spot to be magnified (both because it's so close and because it's on the surface or inside a transparent, spherical object, thus invoking properties of optical magnification).

Since I only ever saw them when looking at a bright, light image (like out a window at the sky when the sun is out), I always assumed it was an analogue to when we looked at swamp water in a microscope in high school biology - those things look just like the bacteria and single-celled lifeforms in the water (in both shape and transparency), and I can only see them when they're backlit by a bright light source (just like in biology!).

I know they were on my eye, and not something else I'm looking at, because they always follow the direction of my vision and shift with my eyeballs.

Wow!

Anyway, can you see them at will, and always in the same spot? That's weird - I only get them very occasionally (once every few months), only in the right circumstances (bright lighting, but not focused in one spot, like from a direct light source), not for very long, and never the same one or in the same spot - and I certainly can't "see them at will."

I always thought they were cool, and rare/difficult enough to see that they're never a problem for me.

 

[Outpost4]

I got tinnitus maybe fifteen years ago at a Paul McCartney concert at Soldier's Field in Chicago. I was on the very back of the floor, wandering around near the porta-johns. There was a bank of speakers I saw, not paying them too much of mind. That is, until McCartney broke into Magical Mystery Tour and the 4 channel effects kicked in. I was a few feet in front of the speakers. That was all it took to make my left ear ring for the rest of my life.

Oh well, if I had to lose part of my hearing, at least I lost it to a Beatle.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Meh, I have them both floaters and tinnitus.

Sometimes I go for hours or days without noticing the floaters, then all of a sudden (like when I read the thread title) I see them! (Thanks backstept )

Tinnitus comes and goes at random moments. Sometime I'm just sitting there, not a loud sound to hand, then *piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*

 

[ancientone51]

Strangely enough, I noticed floaters just this weekend. Hadn't "seen" them in a while, then they were there.

Also have a delightful "soundtrack" to accompany my life, sort of a buzzy hum.

The joys of age...beats the alternative hands down.

 

[Gertch]

Floaters here also. Sometimes it's fun to play games with them but at other times they can look like a mouse scampering across the floor.

Not quite ready to have my fluid filtered however.

 

[JonathonWally]

I got tinnitus maybe fifteen years ago at a Paul McCartney concert at Soldier's Field in Chicago. I was on the very back of the floor, wandering around near the porta-johns. There was a bank of speakers I saw, not paying them too much of mind. That is, until McCartney broke into Magical Mystery Tour and the 4 channel effects kicked in. I was a few feet in front of the speakers. That was all it took to make my left ear ring for the rest of my life.

Oh well, if I had to lose part of my hearing, at least I lost it to a Beatle.

For me it was a NIN concert, that what kicked it into full effect. I've gone to so many loud metal and rock concerts, but that was put it over the line. Amazing concert too.

 

[The Master of Tarquin Hill]

I have lots of floaters.

One time my mom was in the kitchen and she was trying to grab something in front of her. I asked her what she was grabbing at and she said it was a bug. I told her there was nothing there. After she focused on it some more she realized she was trying to grab one of her floaters.

 

[Holdfast]

Interesting little aside on "floaters"...

Floaters are often the shadows of "bits of protein" mentioned earlier (the vitreous clumping together, which happens more as people age). But there is another similar effect that anyone of any age can get. If you look into a blue sky, you can see the shadows cast by blood cells in the retinal circulation. The weird thing about the way the eye evolved is that some of the blood vessels are on the wrong side of the photoreceptors, blocking that layer. So under the right conditions (a bright, blank field like a blue sky) you can see the "shadows" cast by the cells (actually you're seeing an spectral absorption gap in the circulation caused by a white cell amongst the red, but let's not overcomplicate things). It's called Scheerer's Phenomenon or the Scheerer Effect.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!

 

[Gertch]

(actually you're seeing an spectral absorption gap in the circulation caused by a white cell amongst the red, but let's not overcomplicate things). It's called Scheerer's Phenomenon or the Scheerer Effect.

Unless the endoplasmic reticulum over the left ventricle in oscillating frequencies in conjunction with the reciprocal transformer.

 

[Lindley]

I don't ever see them randomly. I can refocus to make them visible sometimes though.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Tinnitus, right ear. From playing amplified music. Electric organ. It wasn't even that loud, just using some small speakers. But the inverse square law I believe applies to sound as well as light - proximity did it - fortunately the ringing is only really noticeable going to sleep, it's quieter than a CPU for instance. But, it's always there.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I have synesthesia--letters/numbers to color and sound to sight (no colors unlike most synesthetes...all of the forms are grayscale, but still quite beautiful to me). I didn't know there was anything unusual about that until I was in my 20s!

I also have tinnitus, and have ever since I was little (lots of ear infections). What's really funny is that I visually perceive the tinnitus as well as hear it.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Mark me down for two, Floaters in both eyes and tinnitus in my left ear.......To think i can remember having 20/20 vision and crystal sharp hearing........ah the joys of aging.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Floaters are actually the shadows of extradimensional beings who are trying to enter our reality to teach us the ways of love and harmony with nature and how to lower our cholesterol.

They told me so.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

It's called Scheerer's Phenomenon or the Scheerer Effect.

But will he come to the rescue of Newcastle United?

I see floaters all the time, ever since childhood. They were like my little friends everywhere. Sometimes I mistook them for spiders.