After-images in relative darkness

Factual Questions
1

Let’s see if I can explain this easily.

I entered a fairly dark room, in which I could barely make out a few objects, but not much. I wanted my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness as soon as possible. So I figured that the best thing would be to have my eyes seeing as little light as possible. So I shut my eyes.

Unfortunately, I still saw some after-images from the brighter previous room I had been in. In fact, these after-images were considerably brighter than the room I was now in.

So were these after-images working against my eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, or don’t they “count” in that respect, since the light I’m seeing isn’t actually entering my eye through the pupil?

2

I have no reference, but as you know, afterimages are from the rods and cones of the retina (a phenomena behind the pupil). Getting accustomed to a dark room involves the dilation of the pupil only; hence, the afterimages would not affect pupil dilation.