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Comment by thaeli | Hacker News Reader

For most of my life, I never quite “got it” about the night sky. It was pretty, but not THAT different away from cities.

I only recently learned that visual snow syndrome is a thing, and that most people don’t have it. For me, there is a faint background of multicolor static (analog TV on a dead channel, for those who remember that) on everything, all the time. Light washes it out, so it’s only in the deep dark that I’m absolutely surrounded by it. (It’s basically visual tinnitus, which in turn lead me to discover that I’ve also had auditory tinnitus my whole life, it’s just a soft static not a “ringing” so I never realized it was the same phenomenon.)

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Huh, I just assumed everyone saw visual snow/noise in the dark, guess not. I was thinking of it like underexposed film grain.

I don't think I notice it that much with the night sky unless the stars are faint though.

I still think everyone sees a noisy image in the dark if they pay attention. Simply because the retina is underexposed. "Visual snow" usually refers to a more extreme condition where you see it even in good lighting.

I can't say that I do. Covered eyes or pitch black room, I don't see anything like "static", either stationary or moving.

Maybe you just don't notice it? It's most noticable in a dark, but not completely dark, room when the eyes got accustomed to the darkness.

To clarify, a similar case: most people are able to see Haidinger's Brush [1], even if they have never noticed it. Why? Because it's not very noticable, so they don't pay attention to it.

1: https://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html

So you're living in the opening of Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

That sentence has changed meaning twice, depending on what generation you are, it's either "snow", solid blue, or a screensaver.

Never considered this, but what a clear example of how drifting language can cause us to lose information, even if it’s written down somewhere.

Kids these days don't even know what a channel is ;-)

(Well, except for YouTube channels)

It's one of those things which seem to exist on a spectrum too; I have it severely enough that some days I outright can't read and my vision distorts quite badly, and it's accompanied by a permanent migraine-like headache. On the other hand, many people I've spoken too experience little impairment at all.

It's a badly named syndrome in my view, since most people younger than me have no idea what TV snow is, and some of the symptoms aren't visual.

I have this as well, and it showed up suddenly about 9 years ago. Trying to observe the sky ever since is distressing because I remember how my visual field used to be.

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