When Our Eyes Are Closed, What, If Anything, Do We Visually Experience?

in draft

Abstract: The question of what we normally visually experience when our eyes are closed was much discussed by 19^th- and early 20^th-century physiologists and psychologists but has not received much serious scholarly attention in the last seventy years.  Purkinje (1819/1948) claimed that most people see checkerboards when they directly face the sun with eyes closed, but I have found no published attempts to replicate this result.  My own observers’ results are mixed.  With eyes closed in darkness, early researchers (Goethe, Purkinje, Müller, Helmholtz, Aubert, Scripture) often reported concentric rings or ribbons, but later researchers have generally reported no such thing.  Historical reports of visual experience in the dark with eyes closed vary widely from almost utter blackness to neutral gray to fantastic color displays.  My own observers have tended to report either some sort of shifting darkness or no visual experience at all (not even of black or neutral gray).  Five volunteers wore random beepers while keeping their eyes closed for two hours a day for a few days.  Reports were highly variable, and two observers reported almost no sensory visual experience (again, not even of black or neutral gray) under these conditions.  I also briefly discuss whether one can see through one’s closed eyelids, whether the eyes-closed visual field is dual or “cyclopean”, its spatial properties, and its liability to voluntary control.

Click here to view this document as a PDF file: Eyes Closed (September 10, 2007).

Or here to view it as an HTM file: Eyes Closed (September 10, 2007).

Or email eschwitz at domain: ucr.edu for a copy of this paper.

Return to Eric Schwitzgebel's homepage.