The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Black Flashes

This page requires a browser that supports
Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG) Animation

When vitamin D levels drop to the point where I experience dementia symptoms, one of those symptoms is black flashes in my peripheral vision.

These occasionally occur while turning my head so I do not get a good look at them. My brain interprets them bizarrely, originally seeing them as the tail of one my black cats even though they had both died and then as the end of my belt, even though there was no way it could be in my line of sight. When my mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, she did not like being left alone because “there were men in black skulking around the house.” A couple of times I saw the black patches well enough to see that they had a bright golden border. They disappear from view in frames rather than a smooth motion.

© Copyright 2021 Andrew Jarvis.