seeing moving shadows behind my eyes without a source to cast them... please, someone give me some f

i'm sorry if this is in the wrong spot; i wasn't sure if i should put it in "philosophy and metaphysics" or "health and wellness" because i don't know for sure if it's something wrong with my eyes or if i'm picking up something "strange." aaaaaaanyway...

for the last few days i've been experiencing a strange thing - always at my boyfriend's apartment (as opposed to at work, in a car, at my parents' house, at my apartment, at friends' houses or apartments, anywhere in public, etc.). ONLY experienced it at the bf's place - more specifically, in his bedroom. see, he shares the apartment with 3 roommates, so his bedroom is "his spot," where most of his stuff is and where we sometimes hang out. i only mention this because i feel like my experiences may have something to do with his bedroom, if not his apartment in general.

here's my situation - you know how when your eyes are shut, your eyes can still detect if something in front of them is moving by the shadow that passes across your vision field? if you don't know exactly what i mean, try this: make sure you're in a well-lit room, close your eyes and face the source of light in the room, and wave your hand across your vision field from one side to the other (not too fast). even with your eyes closed, you'll still be able to detect this movement because you will see a sort of shadow cross your field of vision.

that being said, for the last few days whenever i'm at my boyfriend's apartment (especially in his bedroom), i've been frequently experiencing these shadows crossing my field of vision with my eyes closed, but when i open up my eyes, literally NOTHING in the room is or was moving. boyfriend wasn't moving, there was nothing obstructing my view of the lights in the room, NOTHING there that normally causes this phenomenon.

i attempted to do some research on this; the closest thing (but not really close at all) thing that i found was that some people experiencing retinal detachment sometimes see bright flashes of light in a similar manner. but the thing is that it's not bright flashes, it's never bright flashes. it's only ever been darkish shadows, like someone is waving their hand right in front of my face while my eyes are closed. but then, like i said, when i open my eyes back up, there is nothing there to have caused these shadows. and every time it happens, i open my eyes back up really fast to see what the hell was moving in front of my face (as anyone would). but nothing is ever there.

i don't want to speak too soon, but i'm inclined to rule out any optical pathologies - i've never had ANY problems with my eyes; in fact, my whole family are blind as a bat and wear glasses, but i have 20/8 vision. YES, 20/8 vision (and i'm not adopted). i attribute it to eating lots and lots of carrots. i'm only mentioning this so you know that my eyes are in good shape to rule out vision problems. i don't, and have never had problems with hallucinations or mental health and i haven't abused psychotropic substances, so i don't think that i'm hallucinating. i asked the bf if he'd experienced the same thing and he hasn't.

also, if it matters, there has been talk in the past of a ghost or demon or something "not alive" inhabiting the apartment. but i don't really believe in or am afraid of ghosts or demons bothering me. in fact, i'm not sure if i even believe in ghosts. all i have is this weird flashes-of-shadows thing to go off of, and i'm trying to get to the bottom of it. i'm not overtly afraid or anxious about it. it's just kind of annoying to me and i want to attempt to get to the bottom of it. thank you in advance for any input.

Ummmm. Go see Optometrist. Ghost and Demons

hi op
have you had any sleep depravation recently?
i ask this because i had a similar thing for a short period
though this was in my mid teen and speed contributed to it
i dropped the speed and never had it again
not saying you are though
dave

It's difficult to understand/describe what one sees with their eyes closed (I know, deep right?) but what it sounds like to me is "eye floaters" Eye Floaters - Mayo Clinc

I've had this going on for a while, and the reason it took me so long to figure out what they were is the difficulty explaining what I was seeing. But they don't appear exactly as shadows, like you describe, more like pieces of something that move around in a floating manner when you move your eyes. Could this be what you're seeing?

Its usally blood flowing,check with yours pulse

Might be paranormal. 2 weeks ago if you asked me if paranormal things are real I would have said hell no.

But about a week ago I was at my friends house and one of them was upstairs speaking on his mobile when he came down and said that he saw a shadow figure with a hoodie, and arms stretched out come through the window and go through the door to his side. He said he saw this clear as water.

When we went to that room to check it out, it was much colder than the rest of the house. That's why I now believe this stuff exists.

thank you all for your responses!

@hawkeyes - thank you for condescending me! i will go see an optometrist though; just because i haven't had any eye problems in the past doesn't mean i can't start at some point.

@davesmart - that is a very sensible theory that i didn't even consider. however, i don't think i'm sleep-deprived - i DO have to wake up early for work but i'm usually asleep quite early on weeknights, i get plenty of naps in, and i catch up on whatever lost sleep on the weekends. also, i don't use speed and am not open to using speed either.

@ZeroDeep - i researched "eye floaters" and looked at images of them on google prior to posting my question, and they look and sound nothing like what i'm experiencing.

@kazui1954 - the occurrences do not match up with my pulse. already checked.

besides, none of these things explain why this only ever happens in his bedroom, in his apartment. wouldn't these vision problems happen whenever and wherever??

Is your boyfriend at all into the paranormal, read any books on the occult/paranormal or anything of the matter? Sometimes unintentionally we can attract these things due to our perceptual awareness and acknowledgment of such things. It could also be your boyfriends energy he has created in his own room. Many people have and can create their own energetic space due to the geometrical enclosure of the room itself. If you can, go into his room alone when he isn't there and try to feel the space out to determine if there is some negative presence. The type of energy he is omitting can attract said spirit and it could be possible you are more sensitive to the energy which could be why you could be seeing these things.

reply to post by jvm222


thank you for your response!

my bf isn't into the paranormal really at all, and never has been. as for me, i know quite a bit about the paranormal from past research, but i'm not really into it anymore and haven't been for a few years. HOWEVER, one of my bf's roommates is and, now that i think of it, my bf's bedroom used to be HIS bedroom before my bf moved in. also, the girl that this roommate of his used to date was dark in a way that we couldn't put our finger on and brought out THE absolute *worst* in him. this ex-girlfriend's mom was into voodoo and did some pretty messed-up sh*t with it but the girl *claimed* she wasn't into it. they broke up a couple of months ago and we haven't seen or heard from her since.

the thing is, my bf's roommate hasn't lived in that room for years - the apartment has 3 bedrooms and he moved into a different one a few years ago. do you think that anything "lingering" around would still be in his old room, or would it have followed him into the other room? also, this shadows-when-my-eyes-are-closed thing only started a few days ago but me and the bf have been together for almost 2 years, so i've been going over to their apartment for almost 2 years. so it seems like i would have started seeing it a while ago.

i'm sorry if i'm being difficult, i'm not trying to be it's just that this situation is baffling me, and driving me nuts!

It might be your third eye opening.

Honestly, I went through something similar a few years ago, and kept seeing things moving around when I closed my eyes. I then began to try focusing on what I was seeing, and I began seeing all these images of stuff going on like a movie show. It isn't like dreaming, or day dreaming, I'm awake watching this, and it is very random, nothing that I know or experience regularly. I see this in my bedroom laying down. It is kind of dark, but with plenty of light to see.

I am still not quite sure of what to make of this, but it isn't something I think I need to fear.

Have you tried to meditate in there? Calm yourself and focus on what you 'feel' in the room.

Do the shadows move quickly (like a fast waving hand) or slowly. Do they ever stop mid corssing? As if standing in front of you? Is it ever colder in that room for no reason (windows shut and air conditioning off ect)?

Either way it sounds spooky. If it is a spirit just keep your own emotions positive so as to not promote bad energy.



I see strange things when i close my eyes in dark rooms, but mine appear as flashes or whitish rings. This normally only happens if my blood pressure is elevated and i can usually feel more pressure in my sinus at that time. My eye doctor said its not detached retina as he would be able to tell during an examination and so likely just BP stuff.

I the lights are off do you see anything? If its your BP or pulse just try to breath slowly and steadily to lower your BP and see if it goes away.

Are you relaxed while this happens? Or you go into the room, close your eyes an see it right away? As a someone said it could be related to the third eye, did you experience some life changes recently?

Perceiving a shadow or something black isn´t necessarily bad, it could be a number of things.

If you know how to meditate do it there if you want, if you don´t know how just do the same you usually do but instead of opening your eyes keep them closed, try to stay calm and relaxed for a couple of minutes. If you can do this with the lights off way better, try to notice what color you see after a while, darkness is not black. If it´s “paranormal” you probably will see some color as background and the black thing.

moving shadows is normal for me, but only at night in bed. I lie there alert and can see shadows form where they are supposed to be as if there is light there and I look at the shadow and it is normal. I can't say any but do you think maybe the pulses of dark moving is your eye muscles contracting or blood moving through. sry if some one already mention.

reply to post by Violets
my hunch is there probably is something lingering in that room that is paranormal and it may not be malevolent. It may have always been there or been there for a while but may be agitated in a way and you are perceptive enough to pick it up. Let me ask you...has anything emotional happened to you or anyone living there recently? Emotional or life changing events can sometimes trigger "activity" where normally most would not notice anything.

If it bothers you, either get some local paranormal society to come in and bless the home. Depending on what the determine it to be, they should end up blessing the home and burning sage in all corners of the rooms along with saying prayers to free whatever entity may be there.

Keep us posted.

reply to post by Violets


Violet, have you seen similar to this - perhaps moving slightly faster than these?



You will have to view this on Youtube as embedding has been disabled

thanks so much everyone!

this shadows thing just happens randomly, when i'm least expecting it - doesn't seem to matter if i'm relaxed or not. i have checked and double-checked to see if it is in sync with my pulse, but it doesn't seem to be at all. i haven't tried meditating in there but i will! it is considerably colder in his room most of the time, but we think it's just because the room is very drafty. there's never any fear or anxiety when i experience it; there's a "hmm, what was that??" when it happens and when i open my eyes there's nothing there, so i just forget about it and make a mental note to do some research on it until it happens again. i do tend to get a bit irritated after i see it a bunch of times, but that's the extent of the emotional response to the situation. i haven't really sensed any "dark" energy but that's not something i've actively paid attention to yet. when it happens, it isn't really slow or fast and it just flies from one side of my vision field to the other, without stopping or hovering or anything. it almost follows a shooting-star type path through the air, if that makes sense. i've only observed it with the lights on, not the lights off. i haven't experienced any life changes except i got a sweet new job about a month and a half ago, but that was a good change. no emotional upheavals recently, either. however, my bf's roommate is a tornado of a person, so maybe that would have something to do with it?? but then again, i feel like if it was related to him, it wouldn't make sense that i keep seeing this in my bf's room. but, i WILL definitely keep my eyes closed the next time it happens and see if anything else follows the shadows.

although i'm not a strong believer of or even really afraid of the concept of ghosts, i sometimes get this out-of-left-field feeling that my bf's roomate's ex-girlfriend (the "dark" one i was telling you about) maybe "brought" something in there with her. does that sound completely bogus?? :/ i also get the feeling sometimes that something in the apartment is "watching me," but my next thought is usually "well, if something IS watching, it's about to get a real eyeful!" :/

i am familiar with orbs. haven't seen any in his apartment, BUT there were one or 2 in the apartment i used to live in (not the one i live in now), now that i think of it. again, i didn't really care for the concept of ghosts when i lived there either, but the guy i was dating at the time, as well as a few friends who would come over, noticed them and then i started to after they pointed it out. i'm not sure if it was 2 individual orbs, or just the same one that moved around the old apartment. most of the time it looked white or a light gray, but a few times it glowed green. not sure what this means. i never felt threatened or anything. it was usually observed right above the couch in my living room, or up in one of the ceiling corners of my bedroom. i haven't seen or felt anything at the apartment i live in now.

i'm gonna go over to his apartment tonight, and try all of the things you guys recommended. thank you again for all of your insight and wisdom, it is very appreciated!!

reply to post by DonaldD



Nice. I never knew anyone ever filmed them. It is cool to see them on video. I once thought about filming them to show someone. But she sees them now when she is around me.

It's not condescending to suggest vitreous floaters as the cause of your problem. It affects a lot of people eventually and has nothing to do with how good your vision is. The floaters are pieces of protein that are slightly congealed. As you get older they can affect your vision and also might be indicative of glaucoma, or increased eye pressure. No reason why you should not get a thorough eye examination to rule that out because you definitely want to catch it early. I have the problem and luckily a combination of eye drops keeps the pressure low. As I understand it, in Europe they have a way to zap those things with a laser.

I dont know if you mean eyes closed or eyes open, but...

There is a well known phenomenon called "Closed Eye Visualizations", or CEV's.

They can take many forms, from flashes of random light, floaters, phsychodelic colours, and shadows. They are a form of hallucination. Wikipedia has a good page on them.

Wikipedia - Closed Eye Visualizations.

Hope that helps.

reply to post by Violets


A boring medical explanation: It's possibly due to the chloride ions and protein transport channels in your body. They can affect your ocular nerves and cause the shadows/floaters. It's nothing serious and should be able to be fixed with some diet adjustments.