Many times, when looking at something with a single, continuous color and texture, I can focus on what I think is the surface of my eyeball. I can see small structures which appear to be chains of bubbles floating around the surface of my eye. Is this a common phenomonon? My best guess is that they are bubbles in the liquid that moistens the eye. I would appreciate any thoughts on this, I have asked several people, some can see them too, and some think I’m crazy. Thanks.
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Welcome to the SDMB.
Here are the two threads from the last 30 days which covered this, one of which contains a link to Cecil’s article covering this topic.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=66545
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=66140
You can do some really cool stuff with the search options.
Having read the referenced links, I have a follow-on question. It seems that (while wearing corrective lenses) if I’m in bright sunlight and hold focus on a given point (NOT looking directly at the sun, but perhaps 90 degrees off the sun), I can see what appears to be worms (?) swimming around in front of the eye. They look like little (how do I describe 'em) WORMS that worta wiggle back and forth with no particular destination in mind. They don’t seem to have any inteligible pattern of movement, but I think there’s something going here that maybe I don’t want to really know about. Is this the same effect?!?
Anyone else seen these “eye worms”, or is it just me?
Nope. I see eye-worms also. I don’t wear contact lenses though. I’ve always thought that they were either small particles of dirt, or little bits of airborn fuzz that have stuck to the surface of my eye and haven’t yet made their way to the corners of my eye to accumulate into morning eye boogers.
Of course, it’s just a theory. But I can confirm the eye worms.
In his article, Cecil says that floaters are dead, detatched cells from the hyaloid artery, an artery that ran right through the middle of your eyeball when your mother was three weeks pregnant with you, that are floating around in the vitreous humor, that liquid stuff inside the eye. If you see a lot of them, you should also be seeing a doctor: Your retina might be detatching, or even have a hole in it, a condition that could lead to blindness.
The article: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_311.html
Thank you very much, I did do a search, but used “spots on eye” and didn’t get anything related. Next time I’ll be sure to search for other possible wordings. Thanks again, and I know I’ll always be able to count on the SDMB for intelligent responses and that oh-not-so-subtle prodding 