By Francesca Puledda, Christoph Schankin, and Peter J. Goadsby – https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/wnl.0000000000008909, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=162966149
Visual snow is an interesting phenomenon. It can be black and white dots over a field of vision (visual static). It could be excess floaters. It could be color flashes. When some people close their eyes, they only see dark; I see a light show. Sometimes it leaks over into my normal vision. If I am excessively tired, especially after too much screen time, the black and white dots come out to play. When I wore contacts, floaters were constant and even know if I go looking for them, two or three are always hanging around. The color flashes are migraine related, so, thankfully don’t show up often for me. If it is extremely dark, I really get the black-and-white grid strongly as my eyes try to see something no matter how dark it is.
Doctors believe the underling mechanism to visual snow is excessive excitability of neurons related to vision. If so, my neurons light up like a disco ball. On the plus side, my experience with visual snow doesn’t negatively impact my life. It is also highly related the the thinness of my cornea because of extreme nearsightedness my entire life (thanks, Grandma for those genes).
Imagine my surprise to discover most people see dark when they close their eyes. I really thought everyone got after-images and flashes and floaters at least when the eyes closed.
As with everything, there is a spectrum. At the other end from the closed eyes actually showing black is Visual Snow Syndrome – when the light snow never ends even when the eyes are opened. At present, there is no cure, though the medical community, having recently named the VS Syndrome in 2025, are looking into ways to relieve those people experiencing phenomenon to the point it negatively impacts their lives. They can’t see to drive in some cases…or read…or embroider (horrors!).
The Syndrome is defined as Visual Snow (or similar symptoms like floaters) that persists for more than three months and has no other known cause (like excessive thinning of the cornea because of nearsightedness, lack of sleep, or migraines). For some people, anxiety has created the issue and with decreasing the stress, fixes the issue. Overall it is tinnitus for the eyes. Instead of the ear hearing sounds not there, the eye sees things not there. And, just like tinnitus, it can vary between annoying and overwhelming.
Closing recommendation: Anytime you experience sudden changes of vision, get it looked into immediately. Sometimes they can do nothing; sometimes they can repair a retinal tear can save your vision. Do no delay if floaters suddenly increase, you get the Visual Snow where you never had it before, or blind spots. Some things you can rub dirt in them and walk them off; do not do this with your eyes.
Bibliography
Cleveland Clinic. “Visual Snow Syndrome.” 13 November 2022. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24444-visual-snow-syndrome – last viewed 2/10/2026.
Medical Centric Podcast. “Visual Snow Syndrome: Everything You Need to Know.” 2022. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8HrgFdh9Lc – last viewed 2/10/2026.
Visual Snow Foundation, The. (website) https://visualsnowsyndrome.com/ – last viewed 2/10/2026.
Wikipedia. “Visual Snow Syndrome.” Undated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome – last viewed 2/10/2026.