I am sitting out in the park meditating. Whenever a particularly loud and atonal bird squawks, I see a burst of visual static behind my closed eyes.
I keep on wondering if this is normal.
Possibly! Not to the extent that "numbers have flavors" or anything really notable like that.
@anthracite it comes in many forms and degrees. Most people have it to some small degree and it's random what is cross-connected to what.
In my case visual motion to sound, and sound to mild pulses of light/color. I can easily tell what is real vision and sound from what is induced internally. Though I've fools by the occasional GIF thinking it had faint sound.
Is this new to you?
I have never noticed this before but then again I have also not tried meditating out in the park very much before.
Nope! More like static over the vague swirling reddish nothingness I get when my eyes are closed with some sun on me.
Like TV static when there's no signal, you mean?
Yep! Except someone's stuck red plastic over the CRT.
It might still be a migraine with aura, but I'm not sure.
There's no pain or anything, just a visual effect tightly tied to the sound - it goes away as soon as the loud noise stops.
@anthracite @Tathar although doubtful based on your description, what Tathar is thinking of is a visual migraine. You don't feel pain with those like typical migraines but your visual system goes nutty.
I had visual migraines for a few years on and off and found out that the cause was I wasn't able to get deep sleep for long periods of time (~30 minutes to an hour of deep sleep a week).
But based on what you've said I think you're just letting yourself relax and connect with things overlooked.
I had my first/only one with the zigzags last year, and I couldn't be completely sure whether it was an ocular migraine or a transient ischemic attack. I couldn't spell half my words while it was happening either.
@anthracite Can't say I've heard of that before but qualia is weird like that.
aside from syntheasia it might also be an internal mental reaction to the noise, given that... chakra-splosion you described a while back?
I know I have it sometimes.
@anthracite perhaps you have a bit of Synesthesia? I know that my visual and auditory systems are partially connected together. I have my own neural atypical music visualizer built-in to my brain.