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