Phosphenes and false memories

When I was a little girl, I had an unsuitably early bedtime. I wasn't even tired until about 2 hours after my bedtime. (Not a good parenting strategy, BTW. I became incapable of falling asleep in less than 2 hours even when I was tired, and it took until I was nearly 30 to overcome this.)

However, when I was small I did want to be a good girl, so I would lie in bed with my eyes closed trying really hard to fall asleep.

But a small child doesn't have the inner resources to just lie there doing nothing. I needed something to amuse myself.  Something that I could do while lying in bed with my eyes closed.

So I started watching the colours that I saw behind my eyelids when I closed my eyes (which, I would learn decades later, are called phosphenes). They would move and morph of their own volition, making for an interesting light show.

After some time, I gradually gained control over how the phosphenes moved and morphed.  It never became easy to move them - imagine the nuance of playing a theramin combined with the force required to fight the repulsion of like magnetic poles - but with effort I could manipulate them. I made it into a game, with my goal being to produce a red and blue checkerboard (the reason why I chose a red and blue checkerboard was lost to history) and I was able to reach the checkerboard almost every night.

However, around the age of 8, I developed a new intellectual skill. At the time I called it "thinks", but I now know that it's called Mary Sue fanfiction - mentally writing stories inserting myself into various works of fiction. I found this a far more enjoyable way to spend the hours before I fell asleep, and my phosphenes fell by the wayside.

That pattern has continued ever since, with the addition of romantic fantasies once I reached the point in my life where that was of interest.  But every once in a while, during a bout of insomnia, I'd reach for the phosphenes again and find that I was out of practice, but could still manipulate them.

Until my head injury.

In the aftermath of my head injury, I completely lost the ability to daydream or fantasize. (It began returning 4 months later, but even now a year later, it's still not available 100% of the time like it was before the head injury.)

So, as I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, I reached for my phosphenes.

And they weren't there.

I could see a pattern that looked like a red and green lava lamp, but it wasn't moving at all. And, behind the lava lamp, I could see the eye of Sauron. But it wasn't my phosphenes. It was immovable, unchanging, and vaguely terrifying.

I spent a lot of time lying in bed with my eyes closed after my head injury, and this eye of Sauron was always staring back at me through the lava lamp. I couldn't control it, I couldn't change it, my old familiar patterns weren't there, and I couldn't even fantasize.

I wasn't even sure if I was human any more.

After some months, the eye of Sauron went away. (Its departure correlated with my first burst of vision therapy progress, but I can't tell if this is a cause and effect relationship.)  I also regained the ability to fantasize, so I luxuriated in my newly-regained imagination and stopped worrying about my phosphenes.

Then, a few weeks ago, my phosphenes came back.

And they're completely different!

Sometimes they consist of green figures that remind me of Chinese characters (I can't read Chinese so I couldn't tell you if they're actually Chinese characters, and it's not logistically possible for me to draw them. But wouldn't it be interesting if they said something in Chinese!)

Sometimes they consist of indescribable shapes and colours that are completely different from the indescribable shapes and colours I had previously.

A new and interesting feature is that occasionally a cartoon character will peek its head out from behind the swirling shapes and colours. I can't name any of the cartoon characters, but I have no idea if they're my brain's own creation or existing cartoon characters that my subconscious memory somehow internalized. (Again, it's not logistically possible to draw them, and I haven't been able to google my way to a "Yes! That's it!" moment of recognition.)

These new phosphenes are so interesting and different that I've put daydreaming/fantasy aside, and spend some time exploring them every night as I wait for sleep to overtake me.  I can't control them like I could the old ones (or, at least, I can't yet control them - I haven't a clue whether I'll eventually regain that ability), but I can sort of look around, zoom in, and generally watch the show.

But the most fascinating thing about Phosphenes 2.0 is that after I spend some time watching them, I get a false memory.

Example of a false memory: I was climbing up the side of a building. Partway through I thought "This doesn't seem safe - I shouldn't be able to hang onto the side of a building with just my fingertips." Then I thought "Don't be silly, you've done this thousands of times, people do it every day!"

Of course, I've never actually climbed the side of a building, and I'm not physically capable of hanging off a building by just my fingertips.  And people don't do it every day.

But, somehow, my brain served up that ridiculousness like a memory (as opposed to like a dream or a predream).

Ever since my phosphenes returned, this happens every night. The Phosphenes 2.0 Show, followed by a false memory, followed by the realization that the false memory is false, and then I promptly fall asleep.

It will be interesting to see how long my brain keeps this up for!