By Floco Tausin
Eye floaters – vitreous opacities or consciousness light? A glimpse into the art and myths of former and non-Western cultures suggests that floaters had a spiritual meaning for many people. This article presents floater motifs and their meaning in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
Eye floaters – vitreous opacities or consciousness light? A glimpse into the art and myths of former and non-Western cultures suggests that floaters had a spiritual meaning for many people. This article presents floater motifs and their meaning in North American Indian cultures.
This article is based on the experience that a certain type of eye floaters – the “shining structure floaters†– are more than “vitreous opacities,†as ophthalmology claims. This insight came to me by my teacher, the seer Nestor (Tausin 2012a, 2010a, 2009). In my further research, I found numerous indications that floaters – along with other entoptic phenomena – were perceived, artistically reproduced and passed down by the people of many cultures, ancient and modern (e.g. Tausin 2012b, 2012c). They were probably seen during consciousness altering ritual practices and have been mythically or spiritually interpreted (Tausin 2012d, 2010b). This article supports this assumption by presenting floater structures in some of the native cultures of North America. Examples include all of the major cultural regions: the Arctic and Subarctic (Inuit, Yupik), the Northwest Coast (Tlingit), California (Chumash), the Great Basin (Shoshone), the Pueblo cultures of the Southwest, the Algonquian and Sioux tribes of the East and the Great Plains, as well as the Mound Builders of the Southeast. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
In China, the Book of Changes (I Ching) is one of the most important books used for divination and self-realization. Its principle may have been developed from the perception of eye floaters during altered states of consciousness.
“Eye floaters†(mouches volantes or muscae volitantes in French and German ophthalmology) is a collective term used in ophthalmology for all possible opacities in the vitreous. Many of them can be traced to physiological disorders like retinal detachment or diabetic vitreoretinopathy. The floaters at issue, though – which are also the most experienced floater type – are considered as ‘idiopathic’, i.e. without pathological cause. I call them “shining structure floaters†(Tausin 2012a). They are seen as mobile and scattered semi-transparent dots and strands in the visual field, best perceived in bright light conditions (fig 1). These dots and strands float according to the eye movements which makes them hard to focus on. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
Persons who were revived after being clinically dead often report unusual and profound perceptions they had in the state of near-death. These experiences defy scientific and religious thinking alike. Some visual elements of near-death experiences (NDE) resemble one particular type of eye floaters, the ‘shining structure floaters’. The thesis of this article is that floaters and other entoptic phenomena are phenomena of consciousness which continue to exist in states of near-death – and possibly even beyond death. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
In Western culture, the phenomenon of eye floaters (or muscae volitantes) is primarily understood in line with modern ophthalmology as “vitreous opacitiesâ€. However, the review of mythical and spiritual visual arts from former and non-Western cultures discloses abstract symbols that resemble the typical structures of shining structure floaters (cf. Tausin 2012a). This suggests that floaters have been widely interpreted as a mythical or spiritual phenomenon; and that there might be a perceptual dimension of floaters that is hardly known to modern man. This article provides a trip to the visual worlds of Mesopotamia and suggests that floaters have found their way into the art and imagination of this ancient civilization. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
This article is based on the assumption that prehistoric shamanic rituals include the perception, interpretation and depiction of what we today call ‘eye floaters’ (muscae volitantes). It is suggested that, together with other shamanic symbols, floaters continue to be experienced and depicted in later shamanic societies up to the present day. The present article supports this thesis from the examples of modern Siberian and contemporary Tukano shamans. A closer look at their visual arts reveals geometric structures and characteristics that are typical of eye floaters. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
In Western culture, the phenomenon of vitreous floaters (or muscae volitantes) is primarily understood in line with modern ophthalmology as “vitreous opacitiesâ€. The review of visual arts from former and non-Western cultures representing mythical and spiritual ideas, however, discloses abstract symbols that resemble the typical structures of eye floaters. This suggests that floaters have been widely interpreted as a mythical or spiritual phenomenon; and that there might be a perceptual dimension of floaters that modern ophthalmology fails to see (Tausin, 2010, 2006b). This article provides a trip to the visual worlds of Pharaonic Egypt and suggests that vitreous floaters have found their way into the art and imagination of this ancient civilization. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
For centuries, scholars have found different explanation for eye floaters, the mobile, scattered and transparent spheres and strings in our visual field. Early on, the origin was thought to be in the eye and the phenomenon was considered a disorder or degeneration somewhere between pupil and retina (Plange 1990). Today, eye floaters are believed to be an opacity of the vitreous. However, careful observation of floaters reveals regular structures that call the degeneration thesis into question. These structures strikingly resemble the morphological and functional structures of receptive fields of the visual nervous system. Thus the hypothesis of this article: so-called “idiopathic†(harmless) eye floaters are a visible expression of neuronal processes. (more…)
By Floco Tausin
For centuries, scholars try to find an explanation for the mobile, scattered and transparent spheres and strings in our visual field. Early on in ophthalmological tradition, the origin was thought to be in the eye. The phenomenon was considered a disorder or degeneration somewhere between cornea and retina. Today, eye floaters are believed to be an opacity of the vitreous. However, careful observation of floaters reveals properties that challenge this dominant view and call for a reconsideration of the ophthalmological explanation. (more…)
by Floco Tausin
In the mid-1990s I met a man named Nestor living in the solitude of the hilly Emmental region of Switzerland. Nestor has a unique and provocative claim: that he focuses for years on a constellation of huge shining spheres and strings which have been formed in his field of vision. He interprets this phenomenon as a subtle structure formed by our consciousness which in turn creates our material world. Nestor, who calls himself a seer, ascribes this subjective visual perception to his long lasting efforts to develop his consciousness. He explains his vision as an extended perception of a phenomenon for which, in ophthalmology, the collective term “floaters†is applied. (more…)