Anyone can see the air moving?

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I'm just realizing that I am most likely on the spectrum. So many things are resonating with me after I've been researching info from my daughter's recent diagnosis (she is 5). This question is a little interesting though, and I wonder if anyone else experienced it.

My eyesight has always been very good until recently. It's still very good, and it's not necessary that I wear glasses though I can tell my long distance vision is not as good, and the lighting changes are affecting me more.

So, I was wondering if anyone else could see pixel type colors when they focus in on their immediate surroundings. Like, in the air. It's not boxy though, its curved, like ovals. When I was younger, I could focus in and just watch it for a long time and the colors were more vivid. Now I can still see it, but not quite as closely and the color is barely there. I can however see it moving. Sometimes I joke to myself that I can see air particles moving, but was wondering if anyone else has seen this, if you know if it's related to autism or something else. Thanks

That sounds like a form of synesthesia.

I have it to some extent. Numbers have personalities and sounds are either malevolent or benevolent to me. I feel music. It's not just that the music moves me or makes me feel a certain emotion, which it does, but I also physically feel it.

There's a researcher whose name escapes me at the moment with synesthesia who crosses sensations with taste. He developed a pain scale for wasp stings using himself as the unfortunate test subject. He described not only what the stings of various species felt like, but also how the stings tasted to him.

You are likely describing visual snow.

Thanks guys!

Yes, most likely visual snow, as liminal suggests. Like you, I often perceive it as being three-dimensional, as if it fills the air between me and other objects. If I focus solely on the snow, as I often do if I can't sleep at night, my brain's pattern recognition circuits sometimes go into overdrive, so that I perceive it to be quite structured.

I had never heard of visual snow before.

Learn something new every day!

Is it bothersome?

I can relate to this.

I have seen many visual phenomena but just not the one you described.

Many times I can see the air shimmer due to the heat. Sometimes on a hot summer day you can see "heat" radiating from really hot surfaces such as pavement and shimmer. This is a mirage.

Another type of effect, although I have not witnessed this one is a diamond dust ice storm. Very small hexagon crystals can fall from the sky. Light reflects off the surface of the crystals and they sparkle like diamonds in the sky.

Another type of effect that I have seen is the result of a specific type of migraine headache. A migraine episode would begin with seeing stars around my peripheral vision. Over the next half hour, these sparkling stars would work their way towards the center of my vision, after which my eyesight was obscured by fields of flickering stars and I was effectively blind and then a severe headache would soon follow. This is a specific type of migraine called an ocular migraine. This effect is triggered by fluorescent lighting.

In low light, the snow can dominate my vision to the extent that I can't see through it, so my night vision is poor compared to most other people that I know. I've had to be led by the hand quite a few times to walk unlit footpaths at night. Hence my fascination with torches; I got very excited when the first tiny LED ones came out, and never go anywhere without at least one nowadays.


I experience those too. As I've gotten older, I get the pain and nausea much less than I used to, sometimes not at all, but the visual effects and disorientation remain.

i think i got that all the time when i was younger. i remember being amazed at how i could make them change direction with my mind at will.

One thing that one should remember: air seems to move and pulsate when the temperature is about 80F or above (about 27C).

Not scoffing at the synesthesia at all.