5 ms·

I am not blind, but I do occasionally get migraines with visual auras, as do my wife & mother. Exactly once in my life that I recall, I had a migraine that caus

I am not blind, but I do occasionally get migraines with visual auras, as do my wife & mother. Exactly once in my life that I recall, I had a migraine that caused total perceptual blindness (oddly, this has also happened exactly once to my wife, before we knew each other). It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darkness closing in, it's juts nothing- the field you can see is smaller, and there's still nothing outside of it, just like there always isn't. Like what the back of your head looks like, as the article says. In the end, you literally see Nothing. It's truly bizarre[1]. It's not an experience I particularly want to repeat, but I'm kinda glad it happened just once, for the empathy value. It's not really something that can be effectively described if you haven't (not) seen it yourself; even now, I have trouble re-imagining the experience, 'cause my memory wants to fill in blackness or grayness or whatever. But at least in theory I now know exactly what the Nothing from _The Neverending Story_ (doesn't) look(s) like. :) [1] What makes it even more bizarre is that migraine blindness is a strictly neurological effect- there's no damage to your eyes or optic nerves- which means you can get temporary blindsight. In my wife's case, this meant she managed to walk a couple blocks home from a friend's house, crossing suburban streets and so forth, totally normally, while all the while convinced that she was completely blind. Which, as far as conscious perception goes, was the truth!

sillysaurus3 12y ago
It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darkness closing in, it's juts nothing- the field you can see is smaller, and there's still nothing outside of it, just like there always isn't. This is the first time I've heard of anyone else experiencing this phenomenon besides myself. Have there ever been any long-term effects on you? Mine is slightly different. I don't have migranes, for one. Also, in addition to experiencing exactly what you described (minus the migrane), sometimes I experience the inverse: I can no longer see whatever I look at, but I retain peripheral vision. For example, if I were to look at the "o" in the word "for," I wouldn't be able to see the entire word. I could still read, with difficulty, until the effect became so strong that reading was impossible. (I still had peripheral vision, sort of, but eventually paragraphs became unseeable rather than individual words.) Whenever any of these things occurred, I was completely normal again within two hours. It was bizarre, and it's mystified myself and two eye doctors. It's only happened less than a dozen times, but it's been happening since I was very young, and my most recent was less than a year ago. The "blindness" was exactly as you describe: not a blackness, but a nothingness. Do you happen to have any more info about the condition? It's very elusive.
- titter 12y ago
  I don't want to give a medical diagnosis, but this sounds familiar to me as a migraine sufferer. You might be experiencing a migraine without headache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalgic_migraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalgic_migraine
- quantumet 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom) It's a grab bag of weird perceptual effects that can precede migrane attacks (and apparently epileptic seizures), and they can be very disconcerting if you don't know about them. In my case (only had them once or twice), I experienced the same visual field disassociation as you did (in addition to the scintillating scotoma thing) - I could see individual things in my field of view just fine, but I could not properly combine the whole scene into a whole. Like looking at a cubist artwork - each part is reasonable but the whole doesn't fit together, or had parts missing (not holes, just discontinuities). Of course, very shortly after that started, the migrane headache arrived. Might want to consider talking to a doctor about it; while AFAIK auras are harmless if a bit scary, if you don't have them associated with a known issue like migrane headaches, might be good to try to find out where they're coming from. Not that anyone really seems to understand the mechanisms involved.
  - glaugh 12y ago
    I get the blindness aura thing just before I have a migraine (which doesn't happen much anymore since I stopped accidentally suffocating myself with my pillow..). The experience for me is absolutely identical to that of a blind spot optical illusion, except bigger and in a different area (just a bit off from the center). It's not generally obvious that there's an issue, the brain fills it in, but if I put text in that part of my vision I'll notice I can't actually read it.
- arghnoname 12y ago
  I got that on occasion (though infrequently) and it's usually after prolonged sleep deprivation.
- 12y ago
titter 12y ago
I also have had many migraines with visual aura, and have exactly one similar experience of perceptual blindness.
kazinator 12y ago
I've had a few auras, and my experience was different. There was an ever increasing spot of vision missing, which came to engulf half my vision, but of course I'm aware that the missing part is cutting into my field of vision; I could still map the places in the field of vision where I should see external objects, and imagine something superimposed there. I would say that it was similar to (but eventually larger than) the natural blind spot that occurs where the optic nerve meets the retina. There is no specific color there (it is not black), but we know that an object which should be seen has disappeared because of that spot, and we can imagine that it ought to be there. I'd like to add that I had a recent recurrence of an aura, after some twenty years! It did not precipitate in a headache, and it was the type with a zig-zag edge surrounding the blind spot: an edge of shimmering color. After it came and went, I prepared myself for a headache, but it never happened.
- jes5199 12y ago
  "scintillating scotoma" is the one with the shimmering edge. I've had that a couple times.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    Incredible. I could never find a name for that. I used to have it in early 2Ks. I also had weird brain issues[1], and also have many floaters so I just thought it was one placed just in the worst place, causing refraction. It usually started as a small patch that gradually stretched, moving along the outer edge of my vision. As Wikipedia says, the migraine came a little after that. The last 3 pictures in the article are quite on point : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma ps : Many thanks [1] As far as I could search, it's close to sleep epilepsy.
guard-of-terra 12y ago
"one's visual field steadily contracts" This sounds like tunnel vision. I get that when I'm not feeling well (for example, some kind of gut disturbance).

sillysaurus3 12y ago

It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darkness closing in, it's juts nothing- the field you can see is smaller, and there's still nothing outside of it, just like there always isn't. This is the first time I've heard of anyone else experiencing this phenomenon besides myself. Have there ever been any long-term effects on you? Mine is slightly different. I don't have migranes, for one. Also, in addition to experiencing exactly what you described (minus the migrane), sometimes I experience the inverse: I can no longer see whatever I look at, but I retain peripheral vision. For example, if I were to look at the "o" in the word "for," I wouldn't be able to see the entire word. I could still read, with difficulty, until the effect became so strong that reading was impossible. (I still had peripheral vision, sort of, but eventually paragraphs became unseeable rather than individual words.) Whenever any of these things occurred, I was completely normal again within two hours. It was bizarre, and it's mystified myself and two eye doctors. It's only happened less than a dozen times, but it's been happening since I was very young, and my most recent was less than a year ago. The "blindness" was exactly as you describe: not a blackness, but a nothingness. Do you happen to have any more info about the condition? It's very elusive.

titter 12y ago
I don't want to give a medical diagnosis, but this sounds familiar to me as a migraine sufferer. You might be experiencing a migraine without headache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalgic_migraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalgic_migraine
quantumet 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom) It's a grab bag of weird perceptual effects that can precede migrane attacks (and apparently epileptic seizures), and they can be very disconcerting if you don't know about them. In my case (only had them once or twice), I experienced the same visual field disassociation as you did (in addition to the scintillating scotoma thing) - I could see individual things in my field of view just fine, but I could not properly combine the whole scene into a whole. Like looking at a cubist artwork - each part is reasonable but the whole doesn't fit together, or had parts missing (not holes, just discontinuities). Of course, very shortly after that started, the migrane headache arrived. Might want to consider talking to a doctor about it; while AFAIK auras are harmless if a bit scary, if you don't have them associated with a known issue like migrane headaches, might be good to try to find out where they're coming from. Not that anyone really seems to understand the mechanisms involved.
- glaugh 12y ago
  I get the blindness aura thing just before I have a migraine (which doesn't happen much anymore since I stopped accidentally suffocating myself with my pillow..). The experience for me is absolutely identical to that of a blind spot optical illusion, except bigger and in a different area (just a bit off from the center). It's not generally obvious that there's an issue, the brain fills it in, but if I put text in that part of my vision I'll notice I can't actually read it.
arghnoname 12y ago
I got that on occasion (though infrequently) and it's usually after prolonged sleep deprivation.
12y ago

titter 12y ago

I also have had many migraines with visual aura, and have exactly one similar experience of perceptual blindness.

kazinator 12y ago

I've had a few auras, and my experience was different. There was an ever increasing spot of vision missing, which came to engulf half my vision, but of course I'm aware that the missing part is cutting into my field of vision; I could still map the places in the field of vision where I should see external objects, and imagine something superimposed there. I would say that it was similar to (but eventually larger than) the natural blind spot that occurs where the optic nerve meets the retina. There is no specific color there (it is not black), but we know that an object which should be seen has disappeared because of that spot, and we can imagine that it ought to be there. I'd like to add that I had a recent recurrence of an aura, after some twenty years! It did not precipitate in a headache, and it was the type with a zig-zag edge surrounding the blind spot: an edge of shimmering color. After it came and went, I prepared myself for a headache, but it never happened.

jes5199 12y ago
"scintillating scotoma" is the one with the shimmering edge. I've had that a couple times.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Incredible. I could never find a name for that. I used to have it in early 2Ks. I also had weird brain issues[1], and also have many floaters so I just thought it was one placed just in the worst place, causing refraction. It usually started as a small patch that gradually stretched, moving along the outer edge of my vision. As Wikipedia says, the migraine came a little after that. The last 3 pictures in the article are quite on point : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma ps : Many thanks [1] As far as I could search, it's close to sleep epilepsy.

guard-of-terra 12y ago

"one's visual field steadily contracts" This sounds like tunnel vision. I get that when I'm not feeling well (for example, some kind of gut disturbance).