They're visible to me all the time, along with the floaters, retinal noise and afterimages from saccades (sure, my visual cortex blocks out the actual moving of

They're visible to me all the time, along with the floaters, retinal noise and afterimages from saccades (sure, my visual cortex blocks out the actual moving of the eyes, but my retinas still retain the afterimage from before the saccade, yours does to, if you start paying attention). When I was a child I started noticing these effects, and I probably concentrated on them more than the other kids, I must have somehow taught my brain not to apply whatever filtering it is that allows many people to simply ignore them. I spent a lot of time trying to see the darkness and hear the silence, and for this I suppose I was rewarded with a heightened awareness of what's actually coming from my eyes, and the constant hiss from my ears (not tinnitus, that came later and is different) along with the sound of my pulse.