Talk:Visual snow

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I can also form objects/shapes, even people when I close my eyes and concentrate. I don't know whether it's my brain doing it or.. something else. - IanKC —Preceding unsigned comment added by IanKC (talk • contribs) 16:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

umm I would just like to say this snow can let me hallucinate. I can make it form objects and stuff, kinda fun sometimes.

It's weird. I always see this whenever it is completely dark and there is absolutely no light. It's like a tv screen.

Contents 1 Logical explanation 2 Original Research 3 Very Real 4 Another case 5 New article May 23, 2005 6 Misleading Example Image 7 MS 8 Differentation with "blue field entoptic phenomenon"

[edit] Logical explanation

"However it is also believed that more logical causes such as prolonged use of a VDU or other bright light sources can cause similar symptons, which some believe may be indicating overuse, damage or a weakness of the optic nerve."

I don't see why this explanation is more logical than others, especially since there isn't really any firm data to work with. Since the article already consists mainly of anecdotal evidence and guesswork, I will leave this comment be, but I do consider it suggestive writing. --tijmz 15:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original Research

I am having trouble picturing the future of this article. The subject deserves a place on Wikipedia IMHO, but it does cry out for original research, something that is frowned up in the general Wikipedia community. Visual snow is unrecognized by the medical community at large and so it is impossible to present a textbook science case.

So what to do? This article should make clear that discussion on VS is largely a thing of discussion boards (a phenomenon in its own right) and should of course include any consensus that exists on these boards. I do not know of any scientific articles, but I think some from the on-line VS community do. These should be cited, of course.

However, expecting the view from the scientific community is wishful thinking. Doctors are working with VS patients, but medical literature about it is scarce. Does this disqualify the ailment from being a Wikipedia entry? Or would enough caveats regarding the patient-side discussion make such an entry possible?

Response: Visual Snow is very real to the ones who suffer it, and everything real belongs in Wikipedia. It is rather insensitive of you to question it's inclusion. I do think scientific research is needed on VS, however, the absence of such research does not disqualify it from being real. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.173.19 (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Very Real

At least to those to who can perceive it, it is real. The phenomenon of Visual snow is quite real and often quite annoying. My eye doctor explained it to me as an inability to for my conscience mind to properly filter various electrical activity within either my eye, optic nerve or brain; however complications related to neurofibromatosis could not be ruled out. Bdelisle 09:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another case

This is a hard topic for researchers to address because it is by definition invisible except to the sufferer. Simply as a way of recording the data somewhere, I'll narrate my experience here. I've had it from childhood (first tried to research into it at the age of 10). There are no "floaters". The effect is that of the grain of a photograph: a small amount of "noise" in the luminance channel only (no chromatic variation). The grain is so fine that it may be the same as the smallest feature size resolvable by the eye: it is more noticeable when looking at something smooth and with no texture. The grain is coarser and the effect more noticeable on darker rather than lighter fields. My guess is that the "not filtering noise" hypothesis is probably correct, but it's hard to divine the source of the noise. Possibly the signal from the retina is always noisy because of the way the retina works? Research would be difficult: how to devise ethical ways of experimenting with a phenomenon that is not objectively measurable and causes no sight impairment to those who experience it? JoeBruno 17:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article May 23, 2005

I have replaced the old text by a new one, which presents only views that are based on published sources from the medical literature or from internet resources published elsewehere, so that the article has no longer to be labelled as containing "original research or unverified claims". It now represents a summary of what can be said about visual snow from the point of view of evidence-based medicine. I wish to thank the authors of previous versions for their work; as will be seen, I have not only incorporated a few sentences, but also the general structure of the article from their work.

Remove of change of text

Someone has made a change of one sentence of the text into the following version: "According to the notion of hallucinatory form constants by Klüver (1942) and Siegel and Jarvik (1975), it can be conceived as a variety of visual hallucinations of random form dimension." I have removed this and re-written the initial formulation. Neither Klüver nor Siegel and Jarvik deal with visual snow explicitly, but one can apply their concept of hallucinatory form constants to visual snow. So, one cannot express it as it has been done in the changed sentence, as if Klüver and Siegel and Jarvik were speaking themselves about visual snow.

[edit] Misleading Example Image

I think the example image is quite misleading, and will probably convince the lay observer that their observations of the blue field entoptic phenomenon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon) is in fact the visual snow effect.

Why the creators of this image chose to display the "visual snow" effect on a blue sky is a mystery. That's the classic place where people notice the BFEP, and especially given the picture captions, seems very likely to mislead. At the least the image creator could have pointed out the fuzziness of the entire visual snow side, and also had an arrow on the normal vision side explaining the BFEP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.115.37 (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. I actually just wanted to suggest using the following image: http://www.migraine-aura.org/site/content/e27891/e27265/e42285/e56897/JG_Rauschen_small_490_en.gif

It show the experience of VS much more clearly. Also, I am sure the website will allow this picture to be used. However, I don't know about Wikipedia policy and animated gifs... tijmz 20:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MS

Someone has added a paragraph that visual snow can be a symptom of MS. I know of no published references for that, seems to be a "myth". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.42.77.84 (talk) 13:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that line there anymore but Optic Neuritis is a symptom of MS, and Visual Snow is a symptom of Optic Neuritis. You're right though, such a stretched connection does seem weird. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.173.19 (talk) 11:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Differentation with "blue field entoptic phenomenon"

I would recommendend a section differentiating "blue field entoptic phenomenon - BFEP" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon), as well as other common abnormalities or disorders with similar symptoms. I would also list the specific symptom criteria necessary for visual snow vs. other visual disturbances, and how they differ. (e.g. is visual snow defined as a minimum combination of known visual disturbances at a set level of intensity, does it include unique visual symptoms, etc.). In addition, I would concur with the graphic comments. The example is very misleading, as it appears to portray floaters and BFEP, which are common visual disturbances in healthy subjects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.158.5 (talk) 01:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)