Not related to this, but is it normal, to see some image distortion while looking at certain white surfaces (like empty paper (or even paper with text in bad lighting conditions) and walls)? It sometimes looks like this (not this intense):
I have a similar phenomenon sometimes when looking at white/bright surfaces and/or in (almost) total darkness, I think it’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome?wprov=sfla1
EDIT: As additional info for people that might wonder about this in relation to autism - at least in my case I am fairly certain it is not connected, but a comorbitity of migraines (which in recent years I have had much more rarely, but I still often have the visual aura that comes with them, but without a headache - which I found out is something that isn’t uncommon to happen with age)
I have actually seen a fair bit of discussion of this where autistic people suggest it’s an autistic trait, but I don’t think there’s any studies correlating the two. It could be one of those things that is just a human trait, that autistic people have latched onto and ascribed to autism. Although, I’ve only seen it come up in discussions of autism for some reason, maybe just because those are the only communities I’m in where people are constantly examining the idiosyncrasies of their own experience. Then again, your migraine theory holds up - a quick google says 42% of autistic people have migraines, compared to 10% of the general population.
I experience it quite often, and usefully am actually experiencing it right now. I guess it hasn’t directly informed my comment, but it’s fun to glance up at the white ceiling while typing this and be like “yup, definitely a real thing, can confirm what it looks like”. In my case it’s very fine-grained, like noise varying on the individual pixel level at quite a high resolution, not like big blobs on a CRT tuned to a dead channel, and is multicolored. But it’s also mild enough that it’s easy for me to ignore. I think I’ve seen some people describe it as more obtrusive, blobbier, and/or monochrome, so I guess it varies.
Actually, I went ahead and pulled up an image that’s pretty similar to what I experience. It’s basically this image but extremely transparent, tiled over my entire field of vision: https://physbam.stanford.edu/cs448x/old/attachments/Noise_Review/white_noise_256_3c.png
Wow, I might have this specifically. Firstly: I could relate to palinopsia (if I see something and immediately close my eyes, I could see the outline of it), I often have headaches and probably have a slight tinnitus (which I don’t think is common for teens) and my dad has astigmatism. Do you think I could have specifically this? Edit: I also see something like the blue field entoptic phenomenon, but the dots are slightly transparent and float slower, than in the simulation.
With the caveat that I of course can’t diagnose from here (or at all, not a doctor), it seems to be very probable to me - with headaches and tinnitus also presenting.
