I'm thinking "looking into a tiny projector focused on your retina", but I'm having a hard time imagining what what would be like, since I've literally never ex

I'm thinking "looking into a tiny projector focused on your retina", but I'm having a hard time imagining what what would be like, since I've literally never experienced anything like that. Looking into a normal projector wouldn't be comparable really, as the focus for those is a field much larger than your retina. You'd need something with a lens that would focus it down to dime-size or smaller to get a similar effect, and I doubt you'd want to do this with anything more powerful than a pocket projector. Might be a fun weekend project to hack a new lens system into one and see what it can do if the internals are even hackable enough to make something like that possible (I'm thinking focal lengths and lens types).