seeing bright light when my eyes are closed in dark

I had a very strange visual disturbance last night that made me worry I was dying and I got the worst sleep of my life. I was lying in my bed in complete darkness and when I closed my eyes, a bright white light slowly started to engulf my vision. Which should have been impossible as there was absolutely no light source in the room. It continued to happen every time I closed my eyes and I was sure it was the white light everyone talks about seeing before death. I have had what I can only describe as a PERMANENT migraine aura that appeared about 6 years ago and has remained in my vision ever since. It is a group of three weird little blobs that stay in the same spot and swirl around with little lines moving in the middle of them. I have an MRI scheduled in a few days to finally try and get to the bottom of what exactly it is but until then I have no idea and worry it might kill me. The last time this weird bright light with no source happened last night, my eyes focused directly on those weird aura-like blobs and I saw them really close up in detail as the bright white light covered my entire vision. It was terrifying and I was up all night waiting to die. I rolled over onto my right side and it stopped happening. It only happened if I laid on my left side. What is this?? Not the aura stuff, just the sense of bright light that isn't really there?? Is this normal??

Is this still happening to you? Did you ever find any answers about why this happened?

I had the exact same thing when trying to fall asleep. I just calmed down and it went away. It seems to be anxiety related. When you're worried it happens to some people such as me.

I have been having the same problem. Some nights when I lay down & close my eyes it seems as if there is a light on. There is not. Sometimes an even brighter light wakes me up. I had a sleep study which showed I woke up 41 times! Though mostly very short periods of time. I only remembered 1 time. The light was very bright that time.
Since I take 400 Seroquel XR I think that the light is wakening me up more often but I don't remember it. I don't think this is related to anxiety since I haven't been very anxious at all for the last couple of months. This problem has been going on for months.

I had a period when I was obsessed with my eyes.I will not trouble people with writing about what I googled,what I was checking over and over again.But I had the exact same thing as you.Interestingly I was never bothered about dying (my HA was always based on other things).It happened a few times but I thought it was possibly me reading late and light was not far from my eyes.Speaking from my own experience,in a few weeks you will be obsessed with something else.Just don't panic and it will pass.

Hi. Seeing light when my eyes are closed at night did pass "FOR AWHILE". Maybe 6 months ? It's back now. The first time I had it was approx 2.5 years ago. Around that time I stopped needing to take something to fall asleep - first time in 21 years. Also my memory got progressively worse. For example I met some friends in a restaurant. I said I had never been there before. Turns out I had been there 2 months before with those friends. Those memories never returned.

My memory has been getting much better. I did not realize that this was when I no longer saw lights w/my eyes closed.

Now I am seeing light again, and I need very low amounts of a drug to fall asleep. I am VERY SCARED that my memory will again start getting worse.

With the Coronavirus of course I am more anxious. Which you would expect would result in me needing more meds to fall asleep, not less.

I saw 1 neuro-opthamologist who could not diagnose this. I tried to see a 2nd neuro-opthamologist but when she read the notes of the 1st one she said there would be no other tests she could run so she would not see me.

Is anyone on either Lamictal (lamotrigine) and/or Seroquel (quetiapine) ???

I have started seeing light again in the dark with my eyes opened or closed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination. Not hallucination in the psychiatric sense -- also called closed-eye visuals.

I do not meditate. This article quotes a book which says these visuals can also occur due to medical conditions, but offers no specifics. I have had Bipolar 2, GAD and OCD for over 20 years. The psych meds I've been on the longest are Lamictal & Seroquel. As in a previous post for the first 2 years of "seeing light" I had increasingly bad memory lapses. My memory went back to normal for ~a year. Has gotten somewhat worse again.

I have seen numerous: neurologists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists ... The above Wikipedia article said a general term for these visuals is phosphenes. None of the doctors I consulted knew what a phosphene is.

HELP.