I’ve wondered about this for years, but never seen anything on it anywhere…
Sometimes in the morning, one of my eyes seems to be more sensitive to light than the other one… IE: I can fully open one eye, but the other one is too sensitive and I can’t open it for a while! Also, once I get both eyes open, if I go from one eye to the other, I notice that the room seems significantly brighter with the more sensitive eye…
This seems to go away over the course of the day, but it makes me curious…
not only do I get THAT, but it can happen at other times, too (usually when I’ve been reading). it’s almost like some one has put a tinted saran wrap in front of my one eye.
Asked my eye doctor about it once. he shrugged.
If it really bothers you, schedule an appointment.
Other eye problems I have (just in case it’s related) include myopia (near sighted, 20/400 in my good eye, can’t see the big E at the top of the chart in my bad eye), high eye pressure (aka “glaucoma suspect”) for 12 years, and a freckle on the inside of my left eye. (that’s what they called it - a discolored spot.)
perhaps it has something to do with which eye is your dominant eye. it’s genetic. anyway, the dominant eye is stronger and probably adjusts quicker…
… or maybe not.
whew! Thanks guys… glad to hear that others also have this! But anyone have any ideas of why it happens? For me it is not a chronic problem, but only happens every once in a while…
I need insights!!! (well, need is a strong word… how about ‘want’?)
Eye problems on one side of the head can be a symptom of migraine, methinks. However, if you’re not getting headaches along with the weird eye thing, you should probably consider yourself lucky
My GF, every so often, gets spots in front of one of her eyes for several hours at a time; we’re pretty sure it’s simply an extremely mild form of migraine, without the accompanying headache.
Hope that helps. I’l wait for a doctor to come along and correct me
I’ve always attributed that to the way I sleep. Sometimes I wake up with a pillow covering one eye and the other to the window. On a bright morning, much more light gets in (even under the lid) to the eye without the pillow. Although I’ve never really measured it, I always assumed that the eye under the pillow was slightly more dilated than the other – hence, when I woke up, the eye with more dilation would be seeing everything brighter. This corrects itself after awhile as both eyes get to the same level of dilation.
My first aid instructor always claimed both eyes should be dilated exactly the same. Differences were the result of head trauma or serious injury.
My WAG: I notice a difference in color more than light. The side I’m laying on tends to be redder. I attributed this to blood being differentially circulated.
When you go to your eye doctor and they dilate your pupils, they always put the drops in both eyes (at least, they’ve always done that to me). If both eyes are always dilated exactly the same, it would seem to me that you could achieve the same results by putting the drops in one eye, and letting the other dilate automatically in sympathy.
Think of all the money to be saved in dilating fluid!
I get a little flashing spot in the lower right hand corner of my field of vision when I go out into daylight for the first time. It usually goes away after a few minutes. I imagine that it’s just one of those things.
My eyes also don’t track correctly. One eye won’t be able to follow a moving object at the same rate as the other. Since I had suffered a seizure around the same time as the neurologist noticed this, I got to through a whole battery of tests.
In the end, it was diagnosed as “just one of those things”.
You can always go for an eye exam and ask what the deal is. For the most part, optometric exams are pretty easy as they don’t hurt.
Disbelieving the theory that both eyes are dlated by the same amount, I conducted a small experiment. I covered one eye, while looking into a light source with the other. After about fifteen seconds, I went to a mirror to see if my eyes were dilated differently.
The result – I couldn’t see a difference in the level of dilation. However, I did see a difference in the vision from each eye – the covered eye saw everything as brighter than the non-covered eye. Which brings me back to my original theory, that the difference noticed in the OP may be based on different amounts of light falling on the closed eyes immediately prior to waking up.
