Splitted from a thread about hypnagogic images. Phosphenes are the little dots you see with closed eyes.
Can a person control the phosphenes? I always tried to do that some years ago, and I could sometimes change the shape to squares or create more dots.
Was that just my imagination or is it really possible to influenciate the phosphenes?
If phosphenes are the dots you see when rubbing your eyes while closed, then I am capable of contrlling them 
While my eyes are shut, I can force the phosphenes to take on almost any shape and sometimes even create images ^^
Some people say they can change the color of the little dots.
oh yeah, I just tried rubbing my eyes and realised that there is dots, ( I completely forgot they were there, the last I remember of them was when I was a child and I sneezed in the dark with my eyes shut, and they came about very clear and strong in vision )
mmm its worth rubbing or pushing on them lightly too see what visions you come up with without damaging them of course
I can control mine to the extent of changing the colour and moving them around. I think of them as a sort of interactive pre-dream loading screen!
Yeah, I can sorta control mine, but I’ve honestly never thought much about it until now, haha!
When I was a child, I could control them very well… Nowadays I cannot anymore… 
Im remember thinking of them in this way, too! Okay, I wouldn’t have called it “loading screen”, don’t know if I even had a word for it, but definitely it was the same thing…
Too bad that it doesn’t work anymore… Somebody has some hints for this?
Sorry, I’m a bit of a game freak!
I don’t think I couldn’t tell you how to do it. It just happens normally with me.
BTW have you all noticed how it seams little children have abilities that we older people… must have lost I guess. It would appear that youth isn’t the only thing wasted on the young…
That’s true. Using the phosphenes as example: when I was a child I could control it very easily, nowadays it’s much ‘harder’ then before.
So, nobody can tell us how to play with phosphenes? 
Well, it’s very natural for me. I see it(a dot for example), think of a new shape and imagine it morphing to that, when pay atention again it’s in anew shape, about changing the color I never tried it out.
I had fun with this when I was a child. 
I can make them bright blue by thinking about blue…and I can make them grow if i concentrate on them. It has never led me into proper HI though, probably because of the concentration
It definately is possible…as to how, well I hope how I do it helps someone
Try imagining you are looking at a flat screen that spreads as far as you can see, not too far in front of you, with the dots on the screen. I usually watch the patterns for a little bit, noting how they remind me of kalidascope patterns and other fractial geometric designs…then I focus on seeing a color/shape/pattern appear on the ‘flat’ screen…sort of the same why when dreaming you imagine something you want to make appear. It usually forms fairly quickly for me…though most of the time it continues to flow from one form to another after I stop focusing on it.
Anyway, hope that helps someone some
(I’m glad to know what those dots are called! 
)
Hmz, I pressed my eyes really hard and saw a dragon passing by with its wings flapping. I just remembered I used to play with these phosphenes when I was trying to get asleep when I was little…
Wow, I don’t see any dots when I close my eyes (unless I look at something bright and get an afterimage). Even when I was little I only ever saw symmetrical olive-green swirly patterns. Now I don’t even see those.
tries again
Nope, nothing there. Just blackness.
I found that meditation helps. I did it with Brainwave Gen and had some cool results…
I first had dots forming to make like bird flocks, then later they foarmed into the outline of a tiger, then went to dots, then the tiger, and back and forth then on the last time it showed the tiger attacking…
I dont know if I was controlling this but it was still cool, and i recomend Brainwave Gen to anyone intrested in getting the images nice and clear 
Errr… 
Even when you go to bed?
I have had a good experience with phosphenes a while ago (Before i knew what they were!)
I was lying in my bed trying to WILD, staring into the blackness of my closed eyelids. After a while, when my body got heavy, weird shapes and colours started coming up in the phosphenes. I started to concentrate on them. Doing this caused them to create images of many different things, like a pine forest with a huge amount of water swelling up from its centre…
Anyways, i would suggest to anyone who is thinking of experimenting with this (or through WILD) and having difficulty, to smoke a bit of pot before trying. I find it relaxes me more and lets my mind expand better into the subconcious…
Wasn’t it HI what you got, Taipan?
And about the pot, no thanks, no drugs for me.
Can anyone here control the direction they go in? I’ve got the up down and diagnal, but for some reason I can not get them to go left or right for more than a few seconds. I have had several rather strange experiences while watching these dots and the images they bring and it is my belief that there is much more here than the expination given by science.