# Weird OP art effect when I press my eyes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970 "2010-07-08T15:54:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/1 "2010-07-08T15:54:35Z")
Sometimes when I’m tired I close my eyes and press my eyeballs. After about 15 seconds I start to get weird [Opart](http://img.wallpaperstock.net:81/op-art-moving-squares-two-wallpapers_8994_1152x864.jpg) style visuals with ashifting squared pattern as though I’m moving down a tunnel with geomterical objects flying back at me. This gradually shifts away as I stop the pressure and open my eyes. Does anyone else have similar experiences, and if so does anyone know the physiology behind it? For the record I’ve had this all my life, and never tried drugs, so it isn’t some LSD flashback. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/2 "2010-07-08T15:58:29Z")
Back in the vicinity of 1987 or thereabouts I was hanging out with friends in the university’s Art Dept and picked up a book which turned out to be meticulously done illustrations of the different visuals you get if you close your eye and press your eyelid in this place or that, in this fashion or that fashion. Apparently they are quite reproducible and predictable. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/3 "2010-07-08T15:59:50Z")
It is a pressure phosphene > [@](#): > > **[Originally posted by Wikipedia:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphenes)** > The most common phosphenes are pressure phosphenes, caused by rubbing the closed eyes. They have been known since antiquity, and described by the Greeks.[3] The pressure mechanically stimulates the cells of the retina. Experiences include a darkening of the visual field that moves against the rubbing, a diffuse colored patch that also moves against the rubbing, a scintillating and ever-changing and deforming light grid with occasional dark spots (like a crumpling fly-spotted flyscreen), and a sparse field of intense blue points of light. ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/4 "2010-07-08T16:01:10Z")
Yeah, I’ve done it. I don’t remember the specifics, but I was told it has something to do with the pain nerve impulses interfering with the optic nerve to brain communication. Your eye feels pressure and sends that message to the brain, but some of that message gets sent through the optic nerve and shows up in your brain as the sense of sight - not the sense of touch. IANAO - and I am repeating this from something I was told years ago. I have no guarantees about the accuracy of the info or of my memory! ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/5 "2010-07-08T16:32:17Z")
Thanks, Pressure phosphene it is. Given how common it is I’m surprised that I never heard about it before. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-op-art-effect-when-i-press-my-eyes/545970/6 "2010-07-10T02:27:44Z")
I did it all the time as a kid. They very much resemble what I get when I get a migraine.