r/Millennials • u/squabbleknob • 23h ago

Discussion Raise your hand if you've gotten your first eye floater

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I've got my first. Barely into my 40s, but there it is. šŸ˜®ā€šŸ’Ø Here's to many more to come, I imainge.

Edit: Honestly did not know how common these were for younger people. šŸ¤Æ

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u/legsjohnson Older Millennial 23h ago

TIL there's people who haven't always had them honestly. I'm shook

872

u/DubbleDiller 23h ago

When I was little I thought worms lived in my eyes

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u/SpegalDev 23h ago

I thought I had such good vision that I could see dust particles. šŸ˜‚

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u/kavithatk 22h ago

As a kid, I tried so hard to read what I thought was God's will in that ribbon banner. šŸ™ˆ

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u/DashingDaisy88 22h ago

The whimsical thinking of a child šŸ˜‚

I thought it was worms in my eyes too. I remember seeing them looking up at the sky when I was real young but theyā€™ve gotten worse as Iā€™ve gotten older.

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u/Neveronlyadream 21h ago

I don't know what the fuck I thought they were. I actually don't think I thought they were anything until someone said something. I guess I just assumed it was normal and moved on.

Which is weird. If it happened now, I'd probably think I was dying.

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u/Octospyder 6h ago

weird, mine have gotten better!Ā  I used to get them all the time, but now, at 42, I barely notice them.Ā 

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u/mrjowei 14h ago

They got worse once I started smoking weed.

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u/FinalF137 21h ago

I thought it was Virus, DNA strands or even atoms.

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u/jesse6225 17h ago

Thats what I thought too. I think i got the reference from the Spiderman DNA sequences.

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u/Euphoric_Average_271 21h ago

Me too! I thought i was seeing little bacteria in my eyes.

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u/poopnose85 22h ago

That might be visual snow syndromeĀ 

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u/Cityofthevikingdead 22h ago

How snowy does it need to be?

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u/julesd26 21h ago

My son describes it more like static on a TV screen.

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u/Least_Cartoonist4910 22h ago

Awww dang same lol

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u/N80N00N00 22h ago

Same bro. šŸ˜‚

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u/trwmewy 21h ago

I thought I could see germs šŸ˜‚

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u/Moth1016 6h ago

Saaaame

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u/Octospyder 6h ago

same!! I thought I could see atoms because I have kinda staticky looking vision

ā€¢

u/Bubbly_Performer4864 Older Millennial 19m ago

The day I learned about cells I was like ā€œO_O I CAN SEE THEMā€

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u/PocketFullofLace 21h ago

I thought mine was so good I could see air particles. Iā€™m blind as a bat and I have visual snow. :)

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u/AccomplishedBed3430 15h ago

Nope, not those. I've had those clear dust looking ones forever. These new ones are dark spots that kick around in a similar motion.

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u/MoodooScavenger 14h ago

lol. I thought they were atoms and my super powers was that I can change their direction by blinking. Lol

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u/elektric_eel 13h ago

I always said I could see germs lol

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u/VaultxHunter 13h ago

We'll have I got news for you! You might still be able to see dust particles, with a little light beaming into a dark room.

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u/Sweetest_Jelly 11h ago

I though I had a scar frome the first time I saw the Sun

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u/ElegantHope 10h ago

Same, I actually thought that they were the space dust and tiny meteorites I had learned about that constantly pelt the earth. I thought it was like a superpower lol

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u/onionfunyunbunion 22h ago

Donā€™t be sad, there could still be worms in your eyes.

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u/ohmylanta34 13h ago

Rejoice! For there are countless tiny life forms living in AND around your eyes!

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u/subs_on_a_sailboat 12h ago

We contain multitudes. We are legion

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u/Octospyder 6h ago

a friend's or mine is plural, meaning they have DID, and refer to themselves as a we. I was a scientific minded child and know that I'm made up of thousands of cells and organisms all working to make me function, so I also refer to myself as a we sometimes.Ā  Ā 

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u/disco_disaster 22h ago

I thought they were atoms or molecules. I stopped seeing them as an adult weirdly enough.

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u/Lich-Slapped 22h ago

Because you stopped believing

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u/bwnerkid 22h ago

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u/Igottapoopnow 16h ago

Me pushing my pubes aside so I can go pee

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u/torankusu Xennial 12h ago

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u/ChasingTheNines 21h ago

Some of them are white blood cells you can see

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u/not_responsible Zillennial 22h ago

SAME. I was telling my friends I could see atoms until one kid told me they were eye floaters. so disappointed

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u/Dai-Ten Millennial (1990) 22h ago

I thought I could see atoms.

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u/crescentmoonphase 22h ago

HEY ME TOO! šŸ˜‚

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u/lyssthebitchcalore 21h ago

I thought it was normal for everyone. One day in middle school biology we started learning about parasites, my teacher started showing us pictures. One was an eye parasite. This may be where my health anxiety started.

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u/suh-dood 22h ago

I mean kind of

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u/FartCartographer 3h ago

When I was little, and obsessed with CareBears and bored on car rides, I pretended they were CareBears floating around the clouds.

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u/vnessastalks 22h ago

Omg me too šŸ¤£šŸ¤£

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u/McSchmid 22h ago

You mean this phenomenon

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u/Cliteria 21h ago

I heard they were the white blood cells traveling through the capillaries in your eyes. Made sense to me bc if you follow them they take the same path every time

Seems it's collagen in that vitreous

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u/NameLips 21h ago

some of them look like little clusters of spheres, I thought I could see cells.

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u/dudestir127 1988 20h ago

I thought the lenses in my eyes were magnifying bacteria

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u/driftingalong001 20h ago

Those are not floaters. Those are your white blood cells.

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u/binahbabe 15h ago

They do.

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u/hook_fast_die_warm Geriatric Millennial 15h ago

I thought they were faeries

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u/JJD8705 Millennial 1987 15h ago

lol this!

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u/sh33pd00g 13h ago

I thought i was seeing the cones and rods in my eyes. I was a stupid smart kid lol

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u/Deborahsnores 11h ago

Wasnā€™t there an episode of House where a kid had worms in his eyes?

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u/fatfry08 11h ago

I still think that and Iā€™m 36.

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u/tomboyades 9h ago

I would chase them around and try to catch them like the old school snake cell phone game.

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u/averagejosh 1988 22h ago

Yeah, Iā€™m confused. I thought everyone had these. Iā€™ve had them for as long as I can remember.

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u/rj361030 21h ago

Yā€™all werenā€™t playing games with them as a child? I was pretending it was a platform game and making them bounce off everything.

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u/Atalanta8 23h ago

I learned that in college. I was completely dumbfounded. I literally said "wait all people don't have floaties in their eyes?"

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u/arem1460 22h ago

Must be the same people with no internal monologue.

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u/MeganLeigh1122 19h ago

I had a psychology teacher in high school that would teach and if she dropped her pen she would actually have to say out loud that she dropped it and had to pick it up.

I once saw a guy optometrist when my usual optometrist wasnā€™t available. Guy sat me down and asked me basic questions like if I was feeling ok and if my eyes were bothering me at all. Then it got weird. He asked me if I had there before and I said yes. He didnā€™t see my chart on the desk so he started talking to himself out loud about how I had never been there and he needed to make me a chart. I said that I had been there but he was in his own private world so he didnā€™t hear me. He gets up to go get me a chart when he sees mine on his chair - he placed it there and sat on it. So he talks to himself saying that I did have a chart and I should have said that I did. I talked louder saying I told him twice that I had a chart - never acknowledged what I saidā€¦

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u/PCYou 13h ago

I have no internal monologue and I've had floaters my whole life. For what it's worth, my thoughts are just as constant, but visual, like picturing things happening. I think in words sometimes, but only if I'm specifically picturing a conversation, and it's certainly not the default.

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u/Disastrous-Team-6431 22h ago

I've had floaters since I was a kid but have no internal monologue.

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u/Chocolateheartbreak 22h ago

Wow, thatā€™s so interesting! So you donā€™t hear yourself inside you? what happens if you think? I donā€™t know what life is like without a monologue.

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u/Disastrous-Team-6431 20h ago

Thoughts... appear and have value. They can lead to another. They're just quiet?

I compose music, so I can hear inside my head. Thoughts just don't make "sound".

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u/15k_bastard_ducks 19h ago

I am trying so hard to imagine this, but to me it feels like trying to imagine the scope of the universe. It just doesn't compute. How do your thoughts "appear"...? Are they images, or... feelings, or... something? I constantly have a monologue (sometimes several, at the same time) and do not know what it's like to have a quiet brain.

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u/Chocolateheartbreak 18h ago

Same! Thats exactly what i was going to say

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u/Disastrous-Team-6431 4h ago

Maybe they're akin to assertions? Do you hear a voice that says "apple" whenever you see an apple? Or if you imagine an apple? If you don't, then maybe that's a first step to imagining quiet thoughts. What can you conceptualize without a word appearing?

If you can imagine an apple in your mind's eye without hearing the word "apple", then it stands to reason that my mind can form "hmm did I really get around to buying yoghurt" without me hearing those actual words in my head. Does that make sense?

Edit: I should also mention that I have ADHD and my brain is only "quiet" in the sense that it's not full of imagined sounds (except when I imagine music). It is still full of intrusive, obtrusive and half-finished thoughts.

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u/BrianBash 23h ago

Right?!

Oh well, yā€™all are making me feel better. I thought I was alone with the squiggly guys.

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u/driftingalong001 20h ago

I feel like people donā€™t know what floaters actually are. Iā€™m not saying this is the case for you, but some commenters below you and many people Iā€™ve heard describing their ā€œfloatersā€ are actually describing white blood cells. Those little, mostly clear, things you can see moving in your vision, especially when you stair into a bright sky are NOT floaters. Theyā€™re white blood cells. Yes, everyone has those and Iā€™ve noticed them since I was a child as well. After getting Covid and developing long covid, along with many other much more serious and debilitating symptoms, Iā€™ve developed a lot of random eye issues, including floaters. They are like greyed out spots in my vision. Theyā€™re very annoying and always present (my brain has now learned to ignore them sometimes, but they are still always present). They ā€œget in the wayā€ when Iā€™m trying to read, especially back when I could still work they were always in my way and very irritating.

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u/OsosHormigueros 14h ago

So the little grey worm shaped things are white blood cells?

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u/driftingalong001 5h ago

Yes, that sounds like white blood cells to me. A lot of images online depicting ā€œfloatersā€ are actually depicting these white blood cells (blue field entoptic phenomenon), which is causing a LOT of confusion. Especially if you mostly only see them when looking at the sky, those are your white blood cells. Iā€™ve seen those in my eye - just like you described, worm shaped things with a grey outline, since I was a kid (and yeah whenever people would mention floaters I would assume thatā€™s what they were referring to). But now that Iā€™ve developed actual floaters, these greyed out spots in my vision that stay consistently in the same spot in my vision and are actually irritating/impact my ability to read/focus etc), itā€™s very clear the difference.

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u/blobtron 8h ago

No, those are. The white blood cells are uniform across the field of vision and donā€™t move. The random blob is a floater

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u/jesse6225 17h ago

I was confusing that then. My floaters block the light as they pass but they dont stay in one spot.

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u/splashybanana 14h ago

Hey thanks, TIL. Always wondered what exactly the little floaty things were when looking at the sky, and now I know.

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u/Administrative_Suit7 18h ago

I've got a single black dot that I've had for just 4 weeks (that I've noticed). Only causes issues when reading from a monitor.

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u/driftingalong001 18h ago

Yeah thatā€™s when they were the most annoying for me - when I was working, as I did all my work on a monitor. But I could see them almost always, until my brain learned how to ignore them, which took probably a year.

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u/BrianWulfric 18h ago

Are you having ocular migraines? I'll get that and it's little spots that look like TV static.

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u/driftingalong001 18h ago

No no, what Iā€™m describing is floaters. Theyā€™re always in the same spot (I say ā€œthemā€ cuz I have 2 of them). When they first showed up I could always see them, at least in most lighting scenarios, they are static. I mean they ā€œmoveā€ as you move your eyes, but theyā€™re in the same place in your vision. It took like over a year for my brain to start ignoring them.

90% of the people in this thread donā€™t know what floaters are and think the white blood cells that they can sometimes see moving around in their vision are floaters. No, you didnā€™t all have floaters since you were children šŸ¤¦šŸ½ā€ā™€ļø (frustration is not at you but this entire thread).

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u/Lieutenant_Corndogs 17h ago

Have you tried removing the floater with a spoon?

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u/compassionfever 16h ago

I've had this, exactly as you described, since I was a kid. I figured it was because I looked at the sun directly too much.

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u/Sirabinabi 16h ago

I've had the black floaters since I was a kid. They've progressed so much that my eye doctor said I have floaters of a 70 year old.

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u/ScrapDraft 13h ago

I get these. It's so weird. First time it happened, I was like 20 and home alone. I thought I was dying or something. Absolutely no headache or anything, but suddenly I had this little "static" spot in my vision. And it slowly "rippled" out over the course of an hour or so.

I still get them every once in a while. Super annoying when they come on right before I have to drive or something.

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u/WrongDiagonal 12h ago

Silent migraines.

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u/Cheap_Departure_9912 18h ago

I almost always get them when I first wake up and stand upright. They last for about 10 minutes and then go away.

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u/Piterotody Gen Z 15h ago

I've had those since I was a kid and I have like dozens of them at 25. Guess it's time to visit an ophthalmologist.

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u/Wahx-il-Baqar 22h ago

Wait, they donā€™t?

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u/NotAnotherHipsterBae 23h ago

I always just thought there were there... and then I saw that family guy cutaway gag and learned that they're there for everybody

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u/AquafreshBandit 23h ago

Oh wow. The bit is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV3fcWF88qI

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u/AWorldwithoutSin 22h ago

A poem, by Stewie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqT4W5oe81s

"Oh squiggly line, in my eye fluid"

"I see you there, lurking on the periphery of my vision"

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u/Glum_Anybody_9531 23h ago

What are they?

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u/pleasefetchmeadagger 23h ago

Itā€™s stuff, for lack of a better more sciencey word, suspended in the vitreous humor (jelly like filling) inside the eye that becomes visible because it casts a shadow on your retina. They can sometimes be whatā€™s left of a blood vessel in the eye that dissolves before we are born.

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u/Glum_Anybody_9531 22h ago

How do I know if I have them or not? Iā€™m 37 šŸ« 

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u/pleasefetchmeadagger 22h ago

You can see them! When I look at the sky, ceiling, even watching TV sometimes there are little dots and squiggles in my vision. Theyā€™re mostly transparent or sometimes gray-ish. You can look up some images of examples of what they look like. Iā€™m 32 and Iā€™ve had them for as long as I can remember.

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u/Glum_Anybody_9531 22h ago

Well Iā€™ll be! Iā€™ll have to report back in the daylight tomorrow to see if I too have the squigglers.

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u/PS1988 22h ago

Weā€™re rooting for you!

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u/mid-random 22h ago

If you have them, you can see them. Look at a large, evenly lit, smooth white surface. Just relax your eyes and look into the far distance behind the surface. Do you see some slightly darker, blurry squiggles slowly moving across your field of view? For me, they can be small, like the size of my thumbnail at arms length, or they can be quite large, like the size of a watermellon at the same distance, or anywhere in between. If I try to look directly at them, they scoot aside in the direction of the eye movement before continuing to slowly drift around.

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u/phluper 22h ago

You would see them floating around

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u/Western-Sport500 22h ago

I got my first one when I was 65, right after I had a stick hit me in the eye. Then the doc said its a floater and it will likely not go away, and you will likely get others. Nothing to be done for it.

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u/TK_Punch_ 21h ago

You would know. When the first one appeared for me at 32, I freaked out a bit. It was annoying enough that it distracted me while driving, and I was afraid it was related to retinal detachment or macular degeneration (both of which Iā€™m destined to have per my ophthalmologist, due to a botched LASIK attempt earlier in life).

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u/oso831 22h ago

https://youtu.be/71-2ikn1cuU

It's those faint black squiggly lines in the video

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u/lastbeer 22h ago

Iā€™ve had them my entire life, and I can only speak from my experience, but this simulation is pretty exaggerated. Iā€™m sure there are people out there who have them this bad, but I donā€™t think itā€™s the norm. Most of mine look like the little squiggles that you see in the edges of this video, definitely not those big shadowy clouds in the middle of the frame. Mine move around much more quickly than you see here and follow the inertia of my eye movements. And they are not constantly ā€œvisibleā€ or at least I am not constantly aware of them. Itā€™s the kind of thing where if you actively think about and notice them, then you see them, but if youā€™re focused on anything else, especially something moving, they kind of fade away.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 21h ago

I've had them for as long as I can remember having eyes.

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u/Moooooo01 22h ago

Uhh Samsies

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u/Girl_Mom_98 22h ago

Same. I thought everyone had them.

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u/J-Red 21h ago

I've always had them too but could often block them out except in bright light.
But I'm 40 now and have developed a big permanent one right in the middle of my vision, it's completely different. It gets in the way of reading and working. Really annoying.

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u/MysteriousFee2873 21h ago

Ok so Iā€™m not alone, I found my people!

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u/Comprehensive_Tie538 20h ago

I learned 5 years ago that not everyone has ringing in their ears. I was shocked when I mentioned it and my friends were like "You mean tinnitus? Yeah we don't have that" guess I'm special though lol

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u/Tribblehappy 20h ago

I was taught in school that everyone has them.

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u/sitcomlover1717 Millennial 20h ago

I donā€™t have any, Iā€™m dreading the day one appears because I know it will drive me nuts. I have better than 20/20 vision but recently developed very mild astigmatism. My optometrist said most people wouldnā€™t even notice. Because my vision has always been so good, any little change is very hard for me.

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u/Pure1nsanity 19h ago

My wild one was finding out I have visual snow syndrome. I used to describe being able to "see atoms moving". Nope everything I look at just has a static overlay.. yay..

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u/Fluffaykitties 19h ago

I got my first one last year at 34 and freaked out. My eye doctor was surprised and told me it was totally fine lol

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u/mina-ann 19h ago

I think I was 37 when this happened. I really thought there was a worm in my eye. I did not know, no one told me to expect this. It's scary as fuck when there's a constant spider or bee near your head that you don't know what it is. Why isn't this taught that this can & will happen?

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u/lionheartedthing 15h ago

My whole life until I was 35 thought everyone could see double if they relaxed their vision. Turned out nope I just had a lazy eye.

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u/Educational_Eye3765 14h ago

I've had a few off and on since teenage years but I guess they are the variety that eventually go away.Ā  The little blackish blob that always sits in the same point in your vision (e.g. off to the left of center) so that when you turn your eye to look it moves with your gaze.

Grandma and Grandpa on one side have glaucoma so I figure my odds aren't great, but mom and dad are doing ok other than mom's loose retina that prevents her from riding roller coasters anymore.

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u/essentiallypeguin 14h ago

That's how I felt when I learned in med school some people never get headaches. So if they come in say age 60 and are having the first headache ever, can often be bad news bears

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u/PapaFranzBoas 13h ago

Ok soā€¦ not alone in learning this today.

1

u/BeepBoopIAmACat 13h ago

More like they're invisible to most people. When I'm on my ADHD meds I never notice them, practically invisible. When I'm off my meds I can't not stare at them.

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u/flabbyjabber Older Millennial 13h ago

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u/NoAdsDude 12h ago

I think most people have always had them, but some people are just kinda clueless and don't notice things.

0

u/TK_Punch_ 21h ago

Are you sure youā€™re talking about the same thing? Floaters, the kind that are clumps in your eye, are considered ā€œage-related changes of the eyeā€. Or do you mean the floaters that you see with your eyes closed? Because those are very different.

4

u/drinkallthecoffee 21h ago

I have had floaters with my eyes open my entire life. Itā€™s not the same thing as when my eyes are closed.

They look exactly like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater