Scintillating Scotomas Can Be Awesome!

They can also be really awful. But let's take a look at them. Here's what mine are like.
#migraine #migrainesymptoms #visual
---
To support me or leave me a tip:
ko-fi.com/liftpizzas18139
Paypal: [e-mail]
www.paypal.me/...
Venmo: @liftpizzas
/ liftpizzas
Bitcoin:1D2sXtawzbWhd1mYtEbka5noaBHbASoxCd
ETH: 0x3A2CF97aEBd3c20c9ec3CCb9A388c51237A05e15
Cardano: addr1qx62exeq6z3fygjdrnylrzjwkxw2muu70e9dlpql6j54u9expedjjv7pgpt2ese4ycxqz7xjyn9k28exdjtfffh6nc8skdlarp
Dash: Xs7xsyH8t12FzSkrHGXuS2E3UhXqkqfuGe
Dogecoin: DPfWuBzCsGZiSSsG1wL6iGYUwbZKN4YoUn
Hit the "THANKS" button on any video.
Or become a "channel member" via youtube:
/ @liftpizzas
Anyone who sends a tip within the calendar month will be a supporter for that month and receive all benefits:
Access to any game servers I have running (if any)
I'll add your name to videos
Early Access and Bonus Videos
Discord server
Thanks to my supporters: MuffinMan, Storfirn, Nick Edwards, Kara Croft, Korathal Jones, DataLoreQ, Boudinot1776, TheSlacker64, Anonymous, AlexDurrani, Georg Klang, Adam Saunders, Anders Hellbom, Edward Dolezal, Unity Gamer, Modus Moron, Paul Lovekamp, Kevin Caldwell, Hades666, Beerbag, ArcticLyn, Steve Sudbury, Fire Nation, Fazer Jorda, John Slagle, Grandpa's Gaming, Joe Lacey.
---
Convolutional Neural Network Image by Sven Behnke. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. commons.wikime...
JPEG graphic is public domain.
All other graphics by me.

[@LiftPizzas]

Do you have these? What are yours like? Have you figured out any of your triggers? I found other people saying that bright flashes can set theirs off, too. I'd be curious if this trigger is more common in people who have a photic sneeze reflex like I do. The black and white one happened right after I started trying to add wine to recipes for cooking. (I've always had a bad time with headaches from wine/champagne. I should have known. Duh.)

[@tippitytwitchit]

I was brought here by Google after experiencing my first actions. It started just as you described, at first I thought I was sun-dazzled, but it kept growing instead of fading. The shape and colors were WILD, and now that I know it’s harmless I kinda enjoy the memory. Mine was like a crisply drawn zigzag line, growing out in an arc. The colors flashed and strobes like one of those old 90s fractal videos, or some polarized light coming off, well whatever. The lines themselves were alternating black and white, and flashes of pure colors, yes like your theory brought up either red, green, or blue, would flash off the inside or outside of any given line, or sometimes a few lines together in a wave. It was the very definition of scintillating, and aside from freaking me out it was beautiful. I was both freaked out and oddly excited. Inside the arc was a slowly fading blurry patch. All gone now. No headache yet.

[@LiftPizzas]

That sounded like a good one. Thanks for the detailed description! :)

[@bericbird5886]

For me it's like a geometric shape with all colours mixed into a bright 🌈 rainbow. Usually when I get it I close my eyes and lie down and wait for it to go like after a minute. Then when I open my eyes the "blind spot" feels funny then after hours it will recover..... till the next time I get it (no headaches)

[@nostalgicrobot]

4:40 This one happens to me so often lately, but it stays small and doesn’t grow. Also it's only visible when blinking? I panic so much every time :(

[@LiftPizzas]

Do you have other migraine stuff? If not, maybe you should see a doctor about it.

[@philipjames5381]

I get the third version and they last for about 20 minutes. Fortunately, I don't get the migraines that a lot of people do. The first time it occured I was really worried and thought I was going blind because everthing started to go very dark as well. During the 'episode' it went from my central vision to my peripheral vision, before it dissipated as if, to the back of my eye. It occurs in both eyes simultaneously and is usually accompanied with a 'feeling' that an episode is about to occur. It is something really difficult to explain what you experience. I had all sorts of tests done and was told my eyesight was perfect. I was told by my gp that it is caused by a blood vessel in your brain that goes into a spasm. She was able to give me a positive ID as it was something she too suffered with, but with the searing migraines. I've been having these episodes since January 2020 and keep a spreadsheet going on when they occur and for how long.

[@stephaniedaugherty7169]

Was in the middle of one now. Very bright earth tones on a metallic shiny surface. Geometric color 3-d cubes connected Line curved line. tessellating(fractal) but the whole line is traveling across my field with f vision from my right to left, pulsating/jumpy. Lasted about 15 minutes, pain free and brighter with eyes closed

[@gailolson8255]

Yes, the severe light changes can trigger it or excessive work load stress. I generally get it in one eye, mostly clear, shimmering zig zag for half hour, like a shimmering tear drop. No headaches afterward though.

[@fazerjorda]

In my 20’s, I would get a thin, yellow, flashing filament that would start on the left side and slowly extend in an arc across my upper field of view. Once the end of the filament had reached the right side of my FOV, it would fade away as the painful migraine would come on and make it nearly impossible to function. The flashing filament lasted about 15 minutes and the migraine 15 to 30. I did not notice any other colors, but there may have been blurriness around the filament. Also, it did not zoom in, but kept its pattern, like lightning slowly shooting across my upper FOV. The lights and migraines stopped by my 30’s. I never knew what triggered the events.

[@LiftPizzas]

I've been reading lots of comments on other aura videos and the side-to-side style seems less common than the expanding C or expanding circle. You're the only one I've come across who described a yellow-only filament. Interesting stuff! I'm glad you don't get the headaches anymore!

[@danielsingh9415]

That's similar to mine, a jagged chain of iridescently flashing trapezoidal boxes, floating in from my right-side peripheral vision encroaching on my central vision, but never getting there, i could never look at them directly. Then they would fade away into the distance, and an intense migraine would follow. I didn't know what they were called, so I called them "Jaggies" 😝 Then one "Bad Day" after my Jaggies & migraine, there was forest fire smoke blowing up from WA state, i had a full-on asthma attack, and then an aphasic episode where I lost my ability to speak. It was the weirdest feeling, like watching urself in a movie, u could see urself trying to talk but couldn't control anything. The nouns of my sentences were just gone. My wife was there by that time, but she didn't realize i was in medical crisis, she said i was just mumbling! After about 20 mins, i could talk again, talk, yes, breathe no. Forest fire 🔥 smoke. So i drove to Lee Valley in search for an N99 mask, but it had a rubber gasket that seals better against ur face, but it had a weird smell that made me gag, so back to the surgical mask that i always carried. Who knew that masks would become ubiquitous just a year later! On the way home, while my wife was getting groceries, i called 811 the Nurse's Line for advice, and they basically said to get my butt to Emergency STAT! But that Mt St Joseph's Hospital had the shortest wait times. 4hrs of testing & a CT scan later, and the ER doc had an answer to my Jaggies question, scotoma she said, and Dr Google elaborated, scintillating scotoma. And then the other shoe dropped, she said they're caused by a 4.9cm cystic lesion in my left-side parietal/occipital lobe with edema & mass effect...I had a brain tumor!

[@Callie-26566]

Thank you! I'm experiencing the effect right now at 5 min in the video, a ribbon filled with a jagged black and white pattern that moves when I try to focus on it. First time I've ever had it. Good to know it will go away. Thanks again!

[@HimanshuGupta-nt6kl]

Got the third one, looked very very similar to what you animated - first time having any of these... and I'm in my 30s.. have been sick with flu and ear infection for last 3 weeks.. not sure if that contributed. Mine wasn't C-shaped though... it was rectangular which then morphed into an ellipse with jagged border. Also had alternating colored lines parallel to the border rather than perpendicular as in your animation. Only had it in the left eye. Lasted about 10-12 mins. No headache. Freaked out a little, but was too tired to panic hehe. Hope you're doing good.

[@sandraerickson794]

The third is a frequent visitor, sometimes multiple times a day. I also get kaleidoscope occular migraines, which generally causes vertigo. Then, there's the "shade" that lowers over the top half of my vision. And the sparkling circle when I am in full sun.Ha. Fun times.

[@justafrog5641]

I only get the third kind you mentioned, though it does start out a bit more like a bad sunspot and I know what you mean about the blue yellow color. Mine tend to trigger when I'm not taking care of myself. Eating poorly, drinking alcohol, not exercising. Whenever I get one it's a reminder that I'm letting my health slip a little. I started having them about 2 years ago, and I think I've had about 8. Strangely my mother and my brother started getting them around the same time. My most recent one was much less colorful than usual and more like a large crescent shaped blindspot, but it lasted longer than usual at 30-35 minutes. For me, they start in my right eye and expand out through the left until they totally leave my field of vision. My right is my good one, legally blind in the left.

[@EoinHealy]

I get them all the time, and think they are pretty awesome looking. Most of the time I can just keep doing what I'm doing, and it goes away after about 10 or 20 minutes.

[@amatrine11]

That last one , Had it today . The nothing was like a gel , clear but nothing there . I was reading and part of the words were just gone . Freaked me out . Started as a fishing black zig zag line that formed a circle . then the peripheral vision was completely black in the right eye . My eyesight was like you described , nothingness . When it was over , had a headache on the opposite side . It seemed to be in my rite eye but I would close right eye and still had issues seeing . When eyes were closed could see the circle , as a dark gel centered circle . best way to describe it . Closing eyes did not stop it .

[@LiftPizzas]

Sorry that you got the headache afterward. I know what you mean about the gel.

[@belbachmann5025]

@@LiftPizzas The third one is like mine, with a couple of minor differences. The "gel" effect describes the centre of the aura perfectly. Not a hole, or a blur, but "nothing". The second difference, and I have no idea if this is just a fluke, but all the auras you drew were the shape of a "C". Mine are backwards, or like a "D" without the line. Does everyone see it as a "C", and am I an outlier? I wonder what that means. Perhaps the opposite side of my visual cortex is firing. Anyway, not scary anymore, and quite fascinating if you let yourself enjoy the show!

[@mnnomad1870]

My first recollection of this problem was reading text and it wasn't like a blur it was as if the text was actually missing. Not sure what causes it but stress anxiety, and too much screen time will do it for me. Definitely has a beginning in the end. It just makes it more bearable if I don't look at it and maybe have some nutrition.

[@Nobody_v7.0]

I just experienced this for the first time today and I would describe it as the third example with a thick edge of the first example on the right side of my vision and it lasted about 10-15 minutes as it grew from a small spot to half of my vision. It was not followed by a headache and was set off by a music video involving a plethora of flashing images, not necessarily super bright for high contrast just consistently flashing. I am used to self-induced visual phenomenon but never just sitting on my couch listening to music after eating a banana. Lol.

[@LiftPizzas]

Glad to hear it didn't hurt. :)

[@joshgiesbrecht]

Mine are kinda neat once I figured out it wasn't a stroke. Mine are only black and white though, and the predominant part is the strobe flashing. There are strange shapes with sharp angles (like the angle at the point of a star) within the crescent that radiate rapidly. The strobing disorients me a lot. I also get the "blur" that isn't a blur. You know how your brain fills in your blindspot by "painting in" what it thinks is there? That's what the "blur" is like for me, my brain taking the information from my peripherals and trying to incorporate that into my central field of vision. I usually get 80-90% vision loss as well, 60% blindspot (central visual field), 20-30% flashing shapes (usually on the left). First time lasted an hour, 2nd time (today) last 20 minutes, but was followed by fatigue and a daze like state for about 30 mins after visuals subsided. What I find even weirder, is I "see" it in my left eye on the left side, but when I close my left eye, I see it in the left field of my right eye. As soon as I open my left eye, it returns to the original spot. Brains are cool.

[@danielsingh9415]

Could be switching from ur dominant eye, when u close ur eyes, there's less visual processing required

[@spicyd1]

Don't recall seeing any colors. They are usually curved or some abstract shape. I had this a few hours ago, usually triggered by a flash of light in some way, a couple times I was around a fluorescent light that was flickering that caused it, most recently if I look at a screen too long-today it was my phone screen. An image will get "burned" into my visual field, a lot like when we take a flash photograph and for a few seconds you're blinded but it goes away. But in these instances I stay blinded, it doesn't go away quickly. They are always followed by a migraine, the pain seems to always be on the left side of my head in the same spot. If I take an aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine combo (like Excedrin) rt away it will lessen the pain and kinda helps return my vision to normal sooner. But I usually just have to lay down and close my eyes. I only a few months ago learned what these were called, I used to always call them light trails

[@murraypearson2359]

I have had occasion to talk about the not-black non-vision after I had a concussion and lost all of my vision except my fovea, so I had a 2 degree field of view. I was completely unaware of my own blindness until I stumbled on a door frame! Another time (I had nine concussions growing up) my sister's legs, as she was ice skating in front of me after my fall, kept disappearing. Anyhow, that must be super weird ENCLOSED in a visual field.

[@LiftPizzas]

So weird how our brain sometimes adapts to that stuff. "Oh well the rest of the universe doesn't exist anymore."

[@GlassDeviant]

Mine are much more colourful, like a rainbow without the order of one (like the third one of yours, but not nearly as fast in colour changing and no black dots in the middle and the colours aren't lines, they are random triangles). They weren't slow-flashing, but smoothly flowing like a river or rapids. I don't recall any size changes, but I haven't had one in a long time. I've also had a different effect, where it was like looking through a microscope at a flowing river of blood cells, so it's likely completely unrelated. Oh, and I've never gotten a headache associated with any of them, but then I've never let myself get stressed over them, I just let them happen.

[@LiftPizzas]

It sounds like either blue field entopic (seeing the silhouettes of white blood cells going through capillaries in your retina) or visual snow. I get both, though the visual snow is so mild now that I rarely notice it, and the blue thing is when I look at a clear sky. (Plus it looks cool, too.) Here's a good visual of the blue field thing. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zp-zZWOue9Bseas I suspect the headache is a function of where the process travels physically across your brain, I think it's a similar misfiring of pain processing neurons that would presumably be adjacent to the visual processing. Apparently the same phenomenon can happen elsewhere in the brain, like people get vestibular migraines, or in their speech center and can't speak or are partially speech impaired while the attack is happening.

[@GlassDeviant]

@@LiftPizzas I don't know, it's usually a *lot* of "visual snow", like I said a river. Imagine taking a close-up transparency of a sheet of skin sells and dragging it across your field of vision at extremely close range. Anyway, curious anecdote of my youth which is long past, and which I haven't gotten in many years.

[@flyingdonkey8340]

i get "cartoons" (like im looking at a jigway in the style of a comic book) that are almost like seeing my imagination happens almost once a week in school and there like overlayed on a surface like my desk or paper

[@TigeronStarfire]

My recent ones have been similar to the third one, I think. I think it's due to a new medication I'm on, but when I step out into bright light from inside, I would get a flicker pattern in that shape in my right eye, but without the colors, and momentarily while my eyes adjusted. If I looked in another direction, it'd happen again for a split second. Sunglasses helped. (But no migraine headache, thankfully) I also would see a kind of 'burnt in' after image similar to what happens when you glance at a bright light for too long in that eye. It tends to fade away after a few moments, but if I look elsewhere, it's still there. Spooky stuff. XD

[@bericbird5886]

Is it normal to get a seizure during aura? p.s. it looks like the third one.

[@LiftPizzas]

If you're having seizures you should see a doctor about it.

[@bericbird5886]

@@LiftPizzas Yeah I'm going to a neurologist soon, hopefully they can find it out. Also, when I get the scotomas, I see the "rainbow" eyes opened and closed. So is it the brain causing it or the eye???

[@vleaky3430]

Honest question: is it as digital-looking as it is in the video?

[@LiftPizzas]

Yeah, the black and white one is especially very blocky and looks like it's made of giant pixels. IIRC someone in the 1800s described it as "fortification spectrum."

[@donjohn4778]

Been having these for a few years , seem to be more regular now , twice today , thankfully no migraines , just have 2 wait till this current 1 stops , been going on 20mins or so now.

[@LiftPizzas]

If you start logging things you might find they are related to certain stressors or foods. :)

[@markmaki4460]

I enjoy and even have fun with my scotomata, which are something of a combination of the first and third types you describe, with distinct geometric patterns with beautiful, brilliant, primary colors, flashing and swapping colors in a shimmering effect. They all start with an indistinct blind spot just to the right of my center of vision. Once when one started for me, i happened to have been entering the mens room at work as a colleague was heading to the exit, passing on my left. I saw Bill pass on my left normally, but i noticed that i could not see him in the mirror on my right. I remarked silently to myself that this must indicate that Bill is a vampire, as my understanding at least at the time was that vampires do not produce a reflection in mirrors. One interesting bit about the situation of the growing blind spot, and the crescent-shaped colored part that slowly grows from it and ultimately replaces it, is that while i can still see normally in a small bit in the direct center of my vision, about as large from where i am sitting as two words in this reply i am typing, i cannot read words but very slowly. I think this points to something about how we process reading, in that it suggests to me that our brain actually looks ahead a little as we read and in fact needs to. Since i have never learned to read in any right-to-left system such as Hebrew, i have never been able to check this hypothesis (all of my scotomata appear only to the immediate right of my center of vision).

[@markmaki4460]

I have always suffered a big hemispheric (opposite the side of the scotomata) headache and nausea starting 20-30 minutes after a scotoma starts, but with each passing year (i suffer these events at most 3-4 in a year), i have noticed the headache is less painful. The nausea has never been severe. I suffered my first migraine when i was 29 or 30. When i first experienced the scotoma in that event, which started before my work shift as an assistant manager at a grocery store, i immediately established that it appeared the same in both eyes, so i knew it wasn't a stroke; so like any silly young man, i just went to work normally. I remember at one point sitting in the office with the lights off and the door cracked and with my head on the desk in great pain that evening, but i bullied through it somehow. These days, 30ish years later, the headaches are no worse than a sinus headache though less localized, and i manage them well with light and sound muffled as much as practicable. They endure for only 4-6 hours, and when postdromal, i feel a sense of newness in everything i perceive that is hard to describe, rather like euphoria but not euphoric, if that makes sense.

[@LiftPizzas]

​@@markmaki4460 Yeah I know the newness you describe. There's no word for it but those who have experienced it will know what you mean. :)

[@FazalRahman-p6b]

Scotoma headache ocular please treatment

[@danielsingh9415]

Some is called visual snow, some is called blue field entopic phenomenon, now mine has become horizontal nystagmus, and i don't see my Jaggies anymore

[@LiftPizzas]

Each of those is a separate thing. The blue field one is you seeing your blood cells going through capillaries in your retina and something everyone can experience. :) I don't think nystagmus is related to migraine. It sounds like something you should see a doctor about.

[@danielsingh9415]

@@LiftPizzas I have a brain tumor in my left parietal/occipital lobe, 95% "evicted," the rest is inoperable due to SSS involvement, superior sagittal sinus, the main brain drain vein. So problems with my vision are a given, but it's just managing how much etc making the best of what time I have left. No expiry date set, but high likelihood of recurrence & likely malignant & then the less than 2 years clock starts counting down 😥

[@Loudthickness]

I'm seeing white and black Noise like things

[@LiftPizzas]

Did it progress and go away after a while?

[@Loudthickness]

@@LiftPizzas yes, it goes away and I get headaches afterwards.

[@fazerjorda]

As I mentioned, I saw a thin filament before unpleasant migraines, but there is a time when I see something fun: When I take a hot shower, and bury my face in the shower stream, after a second or two I see swirling checkerboard patterns, usually black and white but sometimes color. I play a game where I really try to ‘focus’ on the patterns and keep watching until they fade into blobs or darkness. I pretend I’m really looking through the Matrix or through dimensions into the reality beyond. One day, something will look back 😳

[@LiftPizzas]

That sounds cool. Is it from the water droplets hitting your eyelids? And yeah the auras, like deja vu, are possibly a glitch in the Matrix. :)

[@fazerjorda]

@@LiftPizzas I assumed everyone saw these. I think its the heat, and it dissipates once the temperature equalizes. It will not keep going forever. Interesting how differently people experience phenomena, or as in the case of ‘brain freeze’, some do not experience it at all.

[@LiftPizzas]

I haven't gotten that one. But I "see" a super-bright flash of light when I'm half asleep and a small sound happens. It isn't related to the sudden full body jerk when you're almost asleep.

[@DogStreet]

In 2024 I've had this plus migraine over 30 times

[@LiftPizzas]

Ugh that really sucks. I hope you can find any triggers and get rid of them.

[@DogStreet]

@@LiftPizzas I started randomly one day when I was 27, I'm 30 now and I get them at least once every 2 weeks. It's a curse, but it could be way worse. I could be dead lol

[@lightdarkequivalent7143]

just had these a few hours ago holy shit i thought i was going blind then and there it started as a small dot, and then suddenly I saw zigzags in the blob and went "what a fucking minute why am I seeing black and white triangles in them" and then it grew into a large ring which snapped on one side until it became a flipped letter C and then it was gone

[@LiftPizzas]

Sounds like you got the black & white fortification spectra. That is IMO the freakiest one because it just looks so artificial, like something a robot would experience if it had defective optical sensors. It seems everyone thinks they're going blind or having a stroke the first time, I definitely did!

[@gdansk12349]

I have these exact things with that transparent vibrant oily whirlpool thing. It’s a whole circle though and I have never had a migraine in my life. It started when I began meditating again after some years without daily meditation. I have it in the center of my field of vision and it never goes away 😅it’s not a problem though