To ask you all to please close your eyes for a moment and tell me...

[password13366]

... what you see?

Any movement, colours, static or just nothing?

Pixels

Static, yes, easier to see when it's otherwise dark. Normal I think.

And now I've read more of the thread I think maybe my pixels are other people's static. Thought it was relatively normal though...?

I have the same visual snow, not just nothing. And like Aisforharlot said, the spinning fractals. I never knew there was a name for those. As kids we used to press our fingers over our closed eyes and see what patterns we could make. Soon enough the fractals appeared, we used to call it "the dot patterns" which was a misnomer as that meant the dots had retreated to the background and all the fractals appeared on top. Fascinating!

I have not tried to make the Dot Patterns for many, many years. Thanks OP

I get the static and small bright lights , I’m shortsighted and get migraines ...

Orange ness. Sometimes little swirls or crosses

A negative image of this screen..

Literally nothing, not even 'blackness'. It's quite disconcerting really!

Negative of the window that fades to static but then if I put my hands over my eyes it's just pitch black.

i see,nothing.no colour...just tried again, its neither dark nor light-its just...nothing.why?

lots of little crisscrosses of all colours (mainly bright on top of black), then bigger blobs of other colours (mainly pastels) floating and fading on top. Sometimes the blobs seem to be retreating, other times advancing.

what is static?

Back in the old days television programming would stop and there would a screen of snow till the morning and Teletext and open university fired up again = static.

I see moving shapes/patterns/static. I Googled it once and self diagnosed myself with closed eye hallucinations, though I, obviously, may be mistaken. I never see just darkness when I close my eyes.

Static and fuzzy stuff, though often depends what I've been looking at immediately before, like a screen burn

That said it's hard to concentrate as all the passengers on the bus are now screaming at me

It depends on where I am with my eyes closed! Sometimes I see lighter areas of red, sometimes it's complete blackness and sometimes it's like a light show with colours and swirls. I like to watch them when I close my eyes for sleep.

If I relax and keep my eyes closed for a bit longer I can see pulsing lights ( blood in tune with heart beat) if I focus in I can then see geometric shapes moving about but that’s a bit freaky and I’m normally not keen on it.

I see nothing when I close my eyes. Pictures in my imagination like dreams are inside my head, not like being played out cinema style on my eyelids

Nothing. Just blackness. And I can't visualise, I have no mind's eye. I believe it's called Aphantasia

Faces

Dark brown with a bit of static. If I go into a floatation/sensory deprivation tank I see northern lights after a while. It's ace.

Oh I would love to go in a floatation tank @SmellMySmellbow

Yes I see different colours and static - I used to love watching them as a child - mind you that was when we had 3 TV Channels only.

I have had eye cancer and had radiotherapy and two surgeries for it - I still see exactly the same with my eyes shut now as I did before. Despite all the examinations and treatments I had none has ever asked what I see when my eyes are closed - so I strongly suspect it does not matter.

Similar to you OP - like a layer of mild static. At night when trying to sleep I can see swirls and flashes like a kind of fireworks display and if I have my eyes closed I can "see" a loud noise, it's very similar to an untuned TV with static and then black and white lines that represent the noise. I only realised a few months ago that not everyone has this so I googled it! It's called Phosphene apparently...

This thread has puzzled me. What do people mean when they say that they see static?