Streaks of light/trails in eye

[stalwartlover]

Hello everyone, I have been suffering from anxiety related to my eyes for around 5 months on and off now and this week I feel like I have slipped back into nearly full blown health anxiety after being OK for nearly a month.

The thing is, when there is a bright point of light in a relatively dark space(e.g a street lamp or a single light in a darkened room) and I scan my eyes from right to left/up and down over it , it leaves a "trail" in the direction my eyes have moved for a few seconds. It looks almost like piece of long thread or something.

I am pretty sure when I was "normal" I never used to see this.. And now I am convinced there is something wrong with my brain.

Anybody had any experiences which are similar to this ?

Thank you for your time,
Jamie

[zippy]

Is it not an eye floater? I had this a few years ago and i freaked out and went to the opticians and he said they are common and its just pieces of debris that move around. Mine was like a little black piece of string that i could see if i looked at light colours or plain background. I dont notice them now because your eyes adjust to them being there after a while.

[stalwartlover]

I have had eye floaters for around 3 year now so I know what they are like and this is something more to do with light rather than something within the eye.

[Mirabelle]

Hi
I have just the same thing and I put it down to hypervigilism due to anxiety.
xx

[stalwartlover]

Mirabelle, thankyou for your reply.

I have been thinking it may be down to hypervigilism as it seems to come and go with peaks in my anxiety and I have also been very sensitive to even slight little changes in my visual field (shadows,cars,birds etc. in the corners of my eyes).

But as you know with health anxiety, there are always those "what if" questions that pop up into my head..

[Mirabelle]

Indeed! I know only too well. My logic goes like this: if two people with anxiety have the same strange symptom, it must be anxiety and not anything else.
xx

[countrygirl]

I thought it was completely normal - I am sure if you get everyone on here to look at a bright light in a dark room and then roam your eyes left to right you will get an after trail of light.

Its not something that anyone would normally do though:). Only someone with ha could do this and keep on doing it:D

[GRH]

Hello. When it's dark, if I am standing at the train station, looking at the platform opposite there is a row of fluorescent lights. If I cast my gaze across the lights, there appears to be a 'fuzzy' bit of light. I think it's caused by floaters catching the light as they move across the eye.

[cjl2301]

All of this is normal. Look at any new video game, you can see these effects re-created in the game to give the game a "realistic" look! :)