I don't think I've ever experienced it outside migraines or really large light/dark transitions.
I used to see floaty stuff as a kid, but not now either.
I was seeing a lot of this in February, but none in March so far.
I used to occasionally have odd episodes where in the periphery of my vision I would get--not sure how better to describe it--psychedelic screensaver-ish patterns that would last for a few minutes, vaguely like you might get from blinking really fast or pressing on your eyes while they were closed. Wasn't painful or really visually obscuring, but it was distracting. Hasn't happened in several years now, and might have been connected to migraines (though they didn't happen together or consecutively), which stopped altogether in my mid to late 40s.
Have you considered quitting coffee?
This thread gave me tinnitus and reminded me that really need my eyes checked. So I guess I'll call it even.
floaters yes, visual snow no. One time (I forget the exact circumstances) I saw these bright moving dots, and I immediately thought "THAT'S what the spinning stars around Coyote's head when he gets hit with the anvil are. Seeing stars is an actual thing!" Lasted maybe 5 seconds and I think it happened a few times, no anvils involved.
I'm very familiar with vitreous floaters. I can almost find them on command if I try. Just reading the OP, visual snow didn't mean anything to me, but reading Wikipedia, I think I might have it sometimes? Weird. A comorbidity with migraines sounds right. I rarely or never get those, but I guess I'd associate what I'm thinking of with long-term but low-grade stress. Not actual crises, but when things are a bit too busy for a bit too long, sometimes I'll feel a bit disassociated and have that visual phenomenon. I would have called it seeing stars until now.
I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened this week. The past two weeks have been rough. Not any one thing in particular but a lot of little things going on.
I'd love to see a camera filter artificially creating the effect to confirm if what I'm thinking of is it or not. The Wikipedia pictures are too vague. Too bad neurologists aren't developing apps to satisfy my curiosity.
5: I've seen floaters and the psychedelic screensaver (though usually when my eyes are closed, or there's pressure over them). I don't think I've experienced visual snow, and any tinnitus has been very transitory - though my hearing's not always the best, which might be part of the defense.
I used to spend a lot of time as a kid pushing my eyeballs to produce geometric shapes. Now that I'm old I stay safe by sticking to drugs.
I also notice a few dark spots on my vision so I probably will have cataracts when I'm old.
5: I'm pretty sure you are describing scintillating scotoma; something I used to get from time to time and likewise for me were sometimes associated with migraines (especially as a teenager) and sometimes not. Have had neither for the last 15-220 years.
From Wikipedia:
Scintillating scotoma is a common visual aura that was first described by 19th-century physician Hubert Airy (1838-1903). Originating from the brain, it may precede a migraine headache, but can also occur acephalgically (without headache). It is often confused with retinal migraine, which originates in the eyeball or socket.
Yes occasional migraines and scintillating scotoma back in the day; and yes visual snow, but not in a way that's noticeable unless I'm staring at a blank wall or something.
In my twenties I had episodes of vertigo/nausea/tinnitus which were tentatively diagnosed as Ménière's disease but never decisively pegged. The very weird thing was that at the time of onset I suddenly started seeing strong moiré patterns in any kind of grid (fences, grates, whatever); it was unambiguous, optometrists and neurologists couldn't find anything to correlate, no one really understood what I was talking about and it never went away. For a few months reading was difficult, then I got used to it; it's still part of my experience but no longer throws me off. I've never found any good account in the clinical literature. So-called "Irlen syndrome" might be in the ballpark but that syndrome as generally described doesn't seem to have much evidence behind it.
Okay wow, I just googled it for the first time in years and suddenly it's attested, linked to vestibular problems, and has a name, which is "oscillopsia." I couldn't find any of that at time of onset in 2006.
Play along at home: if you go here and scroll down to the B/W stripes, do they vibrate and shimmer in your visual field?
No snow, floaters, or dark spots yet (knock on wood), but I'm very sensitive to the blue field entoptic phenomenon, also called Scheerer's phenomenon. It looks like tiny white spots that move around quickly in my entire field of vision when I look into a bright blue sky, although a few weeks ago I noticed it when I looked at some white snow while shoveling on a sunny day.
The phenomenon is caused by white blood cells zipping through our capillaries and interfering with the retinal image, so I've wondered if someone would be able to detect a very low white blood cell count (e.g. if they were immuno-compromised or had a blood cancer) if they noticed that they had stopped experiencing the phenomenon. Probably other symptoms would be more obvious first, like infections or bruising.
15: I get some oddness from the b/w one (not a lot -- someone firing photon torpedoes from top to bottom) but nothing from the colors.
if you go here and scroll down to the B/W stripes, do they vibrate and shimmer in your visual field?
Yes, the BW ones do a lot. The straight color lines, no.
16 explains why some of the descriptions of vitreous floaters are totally wrong. They're describing those dots, instead.
Play along at home: if you go here and scroll down to the B/W stripes, do they vibrate and shimmer in your visual field?
Yes, dramatically so. No effect with the color one though. Crazy.
It struck me the other day that you could definitely set Jeeves & Wooster stories in the present day. Wodehouse wrote in the intro to one collection that, in fact, Bertie is a pre-war creature - the first Jeeves story appeared in 1915, and the "knut", the wealthy, fashionable young man without employment, really disappeared from London the year before and didn't come back. So the stories were anachronistic from the start.
But the trick is not to set them in London. Bertie has a great deal of money and no job and spends most of his time buying expensive consumer goods, driving sports cars, and trying to wriggle out of marriages that his relatives arrange for him.
So, set them in the Gulf States. Have Jeeves as an expat, managing the household of his amiable but idiotic employer.
There was a guy at the barber talking up how great Qatar was and then complaining that he couldn't get an Uber back home. So I suggested that he learn the bus route since it covers his trip easily. It now occurs to me that he probably didn't take the bus for social reasons instead of not understanding the route. I should have been patronizing in explaining how convenient the bus is.
Uh, that guy was full of it. Uber is all over here. I use it all the time.
I was unclear. The Uber he called didn't show up, but he was trying to use it. Probably the uber didn't want to come because it was a 1.5 mile fare. Also, an Uber driver got murdered a few days earlier so I think they lost a bunch of drivers.
Murdered in Qatar? Or Pittsburgh PA?
Pittsburgh. By her Uber fare, who was not using an Uber account with their name.
There was a guy at the barber talking up how great Qatar was and then complaining that he couldn't get an Uber back home.
This was a spectacularly ambiguous sentence.
Yes, it really was. He couldn't get an Uber back to his apartment in Pittsburgh.