I have never been afraid of the dark.
I've always been a night person, me. I am at home in the dark and despite my weird little sleep paralysis thing, I never felt even the slightest bit afraid when the lights go out.

Not until about three years ago.

It was a weird period of my life and the details are boring, but I started to get freaked out in the dark. I found I couldn't sleep without a light or the TV on, and sometimes would remain awake until the sun started to rise. I put it down to just being another symptom of the really rather odd time I was going through..... divorce, stress, depression, bleh. But recently, I think I've discovered another explanation.

Something weird is going on. About a year and a half ago I noticed I had tinnitus. I've always had very mild tinnitus, but it seemed to be getting worse, so I went to the doctor. He sent me to the ENT dept. of the local hospital where it was decided I had perfect hearing and there was nothing wrong with me. There's nothing you can do to relieve tinnitus, so I just decided to live with it. But, on returning to the doctor after the ENT check, he gave me a thorough examination and while he could find nothing wrong with my old lug-holes, he seemed very interested in my eyes. Scarily interested. So interested in fact that he called another doctor in to look at them. I sat there for about ten minutes while these two doctors shone a bright light in my eyes and went "Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

After what seemed like an eternity of becoming ever more worried, the doc told me that my eyes were "strange". My "discs" were odd shaped and slightly reddened, he said, but he couldn't work out why and decided it was probably just the way my eyes are. It was after this that I started to notice weird little things with my vision.... I got floaters in my right eye and strange flashy lights around my perhiperal vision and as soon as it gets dark, it's like a bloody laser show. I do not know how I had never noticed this before, but it was freaking me out severely. I'm sort of used to it now, but the other night a friend and me were walking home along a dark road and I had to hold my hand out in front of me the whole way because to me, it looked as though there was some sort of chain-link fence about a foot in front of my face.

Now, with the silence and the darkness, night time isn't the pleasant place it used to be. Horrible tinnitus and big flashing shapes in front of my eyes have ruined night time for me altogether. I've thought about going back to the docs but I don't want to look like a hypochondriac, so I'm going to go to an optician soon and get my eyes looked at that way.

It's exploding head syndrome. I know it is.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 16:40, 9 replies)

Tricky to diagnose
Sounds like they were checking for either scotoma or scintillating scotoma.

Could also be homonymous hemianopsia.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 17:02, closed)

All diseases should be alliterations
It would make them more fun.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 17:21, closed)

^
I didn't notice that. How odd.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 17:54, closed)

You are going to die.
You have a brain tumor and you are going to die.
(uncle_bud is not the jelly roll king., Sun 26 Jul 2009, 18:14, closed)

I know that.
Now.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 20:45, closed)

Could be neural noise
I have had tinnitus for years and developed 'visual snow' or 'persistant migraine aura' after a bad liver infection a couple of years ago. Mostly it's like watching a TV picture that needs tuning in a little bit better - like there's a net of tiny black dots in front of everything I look at - but I get flashes, floaters and larger black dots too. The dots turn green in the dark almost making me nightblind. I had a MRI scan to check it wasn't a brain tumour which was my first, hysterical conclusion. Apparently it is more common in people who have tinnitus and you get as good at tuning it out the way you can the squealing in your ears.
(Innogen, Sun 26 Jul 2009, 20:13, closed)

I have always seen flashy lights in the dark or with my eyes closed
you get used to it
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 15:45, closed)

I would say everyone gets this
Try pushing your thumbs into your eye sockets (lightly!)and it gets rather blinding.

Optician sounds like a good plan. When I got my eyes checked recently, he took some rather snazzy photos of my retina, which was apparently porn-star standard in it's beauty.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:43, closed)

I've always had it
but nowadays it's far, far worse, like huge shapes moving around and pulsating :(
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 18:49, closed)