Surely you have seen them. Those tiny worm-like grayish and translucent things move around while you are taking a moment to admire the blue and shining clouds. You might feel like something may be wrong with your eye, but there is nothing to be alarmed about, we all have them. So, if they are not something to worry about, what are these ‘worms’ or eye floaters that you observe when you look at the light?
Although you can spend hours trying to hunt them down to observe them more closely, the truth is that these strange objects are slippery and elusive to the eye, constantly changing position and shape. Although these qualities might make us think that they are living beings, the truth is that they are not, but rather red blood cells or proteins floating in the glassy substance of our eyes.
What are myodesopsias?
Their scientific name is ‘myodesopsias’, although they are better known by their common name of ‘flying flies’. They have movement because they position themselves at the back of the eyeball where they cast shadows on the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue in this region of the eyes.
There they hover in the vitreous humor, the name given to the gelatinous substance that fills the inside of the eye, and as expected, they drift in time with the movement of our eyes.
Perhaps this does not explain why you can sometimes see them more clearly than others, which is more related to their position within the eyeball. Just as when you place an object between a light source and a surface, the shadow you see will be brighter the farther we move the object away from the light, the more distant it is, the brighter the shadow will be. The same happens with myodesopsias, the closer they are to the retina, the more defined the shape we see in your eyes.
This is the most frequent entoptic phenomenon along with ‘floating points of light’, known to scientists as the ‘Scheererer phenomenon’, which is when instead of grayish worm-like objects, we see points of light.
Unlike myodesopes, the Scheerer phenomenon is caused by white blood cells passing through the tiny capillary surfaces that form the retina. The immediate consequence is that we see floating points of light moving everywhere.
These are the two most common entoptic phenomena and are completely normal, so there is no need to be alarmed, on the contrary, it is time to observe them now with the knowledge of what causes them. This is how surprisingly the human body works.
Story originally published in Ecoosfera
