I have a question for anyone that might be able to help explain this phenomena.

Ever since I was young at night I've been able to see what I describe as a neon green / purple oscillation that overtakes my visual field in the darkness and increases in intensity the closer I get to sleep.

Floz described it in the chat like this: I see it as a sphere of one of the colors that shrinks and the other color envelopes it



Anyone have any idea what this is? Some kind of visual feedback from the brain? I would love to know.

Take a look at post #44. (Also look at #46 )

Purple is the complement of green.

Actually, magenta is green's complement , but I guess that's a little poetic licence.



If I were to guess, House, I would think those colours are an attempt by your cerebral cortex to sort and interpret the closed eye dark signal arriving from your optic nerve. Again, I am guessing the circles are where your peripheral vision ordinarily trails off (yes, we see the world as two fethered edge converging circles). Insofar as the colour is concerned, (guessing again), it might be that the tungsten light you turn off before going to sleep, which has a large red wavelength component, is causing a greenish glow in the shape of your cornea, with a reddish/magenta halo your brain imposes to try and resolve the colour.

Here's an experiment: look into a light bulb (25W or so - no need to blind yourself!), then shut it off and close your eyes and wait. Green and purple halos!!

JBArk

I experience the same phenomenon, but lately it has been a little more prominent. Maybe it's because I have been focusing on it more.

One thing that I have found is that as I get closer to sleep the colors become extremely vivid, and sometime it even seems like I am breaking through to the dreamstate. The circles start moving faster and seem to develop more depth until it seems like a hole is torn in the center of my visual field. Most of the time I recognize a face behind the rip right before it closes up. It generally closes up as soon as I try to focus on it.

Sometimes my body gets extremely heavy and it almost seems like my surrounding is taking shape behind my closed eyes. Like I'm about to astral project or something. Maybe thats why I have been focusing more on it; I really want to experience the astral projection phenomenon.

Maybe the visions are just my brain starting to interpret the days event and discard the unnecessary information. The usual process of sleep beginning a little early.

Magenta is the complement of pure green, but different shades of green have different complements. For example, a nice "minty" green has a purple complement, and a deeper "forest" green has an almost pink complement:

...but that's a little like saying that white's corollary isn't always black, but dark grey, if the white isn't pure, isn't it? . By default, when speaking of either pigment colour or of the colour of light, it is to the pure colour that is refered.

Am i gettin' yer goat yet?

JSNark

yes

I frequently see a purple field that shrinks to a big dot and appears to swirl down a drain, continually.

I figured it's maybe blood passing through a vein in my eye, or in my visual cortex, as the phenomena seems to correlate to my pulse.

It might be worth looking up "visual purple" on wikipedia also.