seeing bright light when my eyes are closed in dark

[LavenderRain]

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??

[Lauraleumer]

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

[z_seroz]

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.

[egecko]

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.

[Anka]

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.

[egecko]

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.

[egecko]

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

[egecko]

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.