What actually do we see when we close our eyes?

Umm, pretty interesting right, what do we actually “see” when we shut our eyes.

Before that, let’s understand what “seeing” actually means.

When you see a ball, the light bounces off the object and enters your eye. Now inside your eye, is a whole new world. The iris, first allows the appropriate amount of light to pass in, the cornea acts as the outermost lens. Then the light waves pass through and fall on the screen of the eye called the retina. The image formed on the retina is actually inverse, well, does that mean the whole world is inverse?

Thankfully, the waves which are then passed to the brain, are reformed back to the proper way. Then the proper image is processed inside our brain, and that’s how we “see” the world.

So, when we close our eyes, some amount of light still passes through our eyelids right? That means, we still should see something, and we do. You must have searched it on the internet.

Maybe something like this?

Or like this?

But then, were dissatisfied?

That’s because it’s different for everyone. The amount of light reaching our eyes when we close them varies for each person and then accordingly, we see different images. Some might be moving, some might be still, some can differ colour, some see complete black.

It does definitely vary on the amount of pressure you put on your eyes, may it be through just your eyelids or some external force such as your fingers.   

You must’ve also heard about people “seeing stars” or may have experienced it too, I hope that you weren’t punched though.

So, let’s understand what “seeing stars” means once and for all.

This might happen due to the blow on the head, as you were hit hard, which in turn might have resulted in tears or holes in the retina, which is quite temporary, as you get your normal vision back. Other reasons might be, low sugar, blood pressure etc.

Basically, when your eyes are closed and sometimes when open and watching a clear sky or a wall, you see these small little things which you might find annoying. But they are nothing external, they are something inherent in your eyes. These are called “phosphenes” and are small particles in your eyes that come between your cornea and the retina, resulting in them casting an unwanted shadow on the screen, which in turn produces those little worm type images. Those particles could be anything, from RBC in the blood to any other blood component or an unwanted particle. This is the reason for those little floating particles which you might see.

Let us clear another misconception, how do you visualize a red apple or yellow flower?

We know that white light is nothing but, the mixture of all the VIBGYOR colours. The light under which we see an apple or a flower is also white, then why do we specifically see the red colour? What do you think the apple “absorbs” only the red colour or “reflect” the red colour? It specifically “reflects” the red colour which ironically results in it being everything, but red colour. Funny right? So, scientifically speaking, the apple does not have any components of red colour, still because it reflects it, and because our rods and cones catch it, we casually say that the apple is red.

A black guy next time can definitely defend himself when he faces any kind of racism, “dude, I am literally absorbing all colours, I am pure, and I am proud of it.”

Hope you found the random information worth a read. 

Thanks for reading, I'd like to get your perspective too.