Closed-Eye Hallucination

Closed-eye hallucinations, also called closed-eye visualizations, are hallucinations that occur when a person's eyes are closed or when they are in a darkened room. They are distinct from phosphenes, the perceived light and shapes produced when pressure is applied directly to the retina or by some other non-visual physical cause stimulating the eye. Some people report closed-eye visualizations while under the influence of psychedelic drugs, and these are reportedly different in character from the open-eye hallucinations the same substances can produce. A related but separately named phenomenon, visual release hallucinations, refers to similar closed-eye or dark-field imagery that arises specifically from a loss of vision rather than from a drug or from ordinary closed-eye viewing conditions.