[Heineken]

Hello all. This is the peak oil life form known as Heineken. I've been dropping in on you again after yet another absence of . . . what, two years? Three?

I was going to ask you all about the status of peak oil (oops, I mean Peak Oil)---whether you still believe in it, its current status, but instead I decided to ask you if you see the little spots.

The world's population can be divided into two groups. People who can see the little spots, and people who cannot.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, right now, look into the darkest corner of your room. Or better yet, just close your eyes. What do you see? Is it pure, clean, solid, unadorned blackness, or do you see, as I do, myriad tiny specks as of light, vibrating and milling around?

I have asked others this question, at long intervals, all my life. None say they've ever been asked it before. Some admit to seeing the spots when I ask them, some are incapable of seeing them (or perhaps, for them, they are truly not there).

My guess is that they are an artifact of our nervous and visual systems. Or maybe I've gone mad.

[Plantagenet]

When I close my eyes I see college girls in bikinis playing volleyball on the beach.

Isn't that what everybody sees?

[Novus]

I see the spots too but do you hear the sound of silence. It is like a dog whistle blowing all the time. My theory is that it is actually radiation. It is part of the realm of extra sensory perception. Some people can see and hear it but most do not. Machines can pick it up though. It is like the equivalent of seeing and hearing radio waves. Even though most cannot perceive it the radiation is there and it effects them anyway. Here is where it gets crazy though. Some theorize that this radio wave radiation is being manipulated for the purposes of mind control and thought reading. There is real science behind this stuff going back to the 1940s and 50s but the later research is classified. This is where the origin of the term tin foil conspiracy comes from because the people who believe in this stuff put tin foil on their heads to block the mind control waves.

[dorlomin]

These?

[Fishman]

Heineken, glad to have you back. But honestly now, have you been hitting the 'shrooms over the last two years? Perhaps a predominance of rods or cones in the retina for different folks?

If I recall correctly you had some land you were working to improve? And your seasonal gardening threads were some of the best.

[kpeavey]

You were gone?

Spots
I get the kind you can almost focus on but when you try to look right at it the speck moves in the same direction you are trying to look. I believe it is a genetic marker for an increased risk of Zombieism.

Silence
I used to hear the ringing in pulses. Now I hear a more steady tone.
and voices

Plantagenet has one of those optical illusions.
If you stare at it long enough you will see Dubya in the background.

[Novus]

They don't look anything like that. They move like Lava lamp goo sped up x100 and they change color and spin at amazing speeds while disappearing and appearing out of nothingness. As I said I am pretty sure it is radiation.

The visible light normal people see is only tiny part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. People with extra sensory perception or ESP can see and hear other parts of the spectrum. The screen you are reading this from gives off so much radiation it would sound like a vacuum cleaner if you could hear it all.

[Fishman]

Perhaps its those faster than light neutrinos hitting one's neurons.

[dinopello]

Wherever you are, whoever you are, right now, look into the darkest corner of your room. Or better yet, just close your eyes. What do you see?

I see what looks like menacing, dancing clowns.



Or, maybe that's just the Republican presidential candidates ?

[Heineken]

When I close my eyes I see college girls in bikinis playing volleyball on the beach.

Isn't that what everybody sees?

Yum. If only Bush had become a porno movie producer instead of president. Or a tunnel guard.

[Heineken]

I see the spots too but do you hear the sound of silence. It is like a dog whistle blowing all the time. My theory is that it is actually radiation. It is part of the realm of extra sensory perception. Some people can see and hear it but most do not. Machines can pick it up though. It is like the equivalent of seeing and hearing radio waves. Even though most cannot perceive it the radiation is there and it effects them anyway. Here is where it gets crazy though. Some theorize that this radio wave radiation is being manipulated for the purposes of mind control and thought reading. There is real science behind this stuff going back to the 1940s and 50s but the later research is classified. This is where the origin of the term tin foil conspiracy comes from because the people who believe in this stuff put tin foil on their heads to block the mind control waves.

I am not convinced you see the spots, Novus. But you are seeing something.

[Heineken]

These?

No, they are definitely not floaters, dorlomin. But you're in the ballpark. They look a little like floaters, but they are much smaller and rounder, and vastly more numerous. They fill the blackness almost like dense, buzzing stars.

[anador]

I definitely do see the spots.

I also used to press on my eyes to get stunning pressure-visuals as a child.

I am convinced however that I have a condition called Palinopsia, where you have a much higher sensitivity to seeing afterimages. I see afterimages all the time even when I look away from areas of low contrast. In fact as I type this I am conscious of other colors and static in my vision that I choose to ignore.

I dont use glasses and have perfect color recognition btw. (I took a test)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palinopsia

[Heineken]

Wherever you are, whoever you are, right now, look into the darkest corner of your room. Or better yet, just close your eyes. What do you see?

I see what looks like menacing, dancing clowns.



Or, maybe that's just the Republican presidential candidates ?

Look at your photo. Look at the darkness around the clown. The spots are there in the darkness, filling it. It's not uniformly black, it's filled with bits of light.

[Heineken]

You were gone?

Spots
I get the kind you can almost focus on but when you try to look right at it the speck moves in the same direction you are trying to look. I believe it is a genetic marker for an increased risk of Zombieism.

No, those are floaters, Peavey. Not the spots I mean.

[Heineken]

I definitely do see the spots.

I also used to press on my eyes to get stunning pressure-visuals as a child.

I am convinced however that I have a condition called Palinopsia, where you have a much higher sensitivity to seeing afterimages. I see afterimages all the time even when I look away from areas of low contrast. In fact as I type this I am conscious of other colors and static in my vision that I choose to ignore.

I dont use glasses and have perfect color recognition btw. (I took a test)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palinopsia

At last, someone who sees the spots. You belong to the group that sees them, Anador. Can you describe them better than I have done? Or differently? That might get others who can't see them, to SEE them.

Visual static. The "snow" you used to see on analog television. That's a good analogy.

[anador]

Its almost a soft suffusing blanket of them across your vision undulating in waves through greens, violets and yellows. Never too intense, they are soft and can be ignored or pushed to the backround.
But when you are looking for them you can almost seen to explore them as a landscape.

They form arms, patterns, and waves. constantly changing and unfolding. sometimes there are areas of greater intensity. sometimes they have a symmetrical almost kaleidoscopic quality.

I have always found them comforting for some reason.

[anador]

But yeah... Kaleidescopic Television Snow, might be how I would call it

[Heineken]

Wow, you see more than I do, Anador! I can't manage to see the colors you do.

I challenge anyone to tightly close his or her eyes and peer into that darkness. Analyze it deeply. Closely study it for a minute or two. It isn't just like a pond of black paint.

Don't you see the spots?

[PrestonSturges]

I think that's random nerve activity of any organ, it's just that the eyes provide a visual representation of what is usually below our threshold of detection. My guess is that it's in the visual part of the brain rather than the actual retina.