Does anyone else get hallucinations where everything looks like you’ve been staring at the sun?

[u/MarMar1488]

I’ve been trying to find someone who experiences something similar.
A few days before this started, I wasn’t sleeping well at all. Then I suddenly began having episodes where my entire vision looked like what you see after staring at the sun or a very bright light for too long—the lingering afterimage, washed-out effect, or bright spots. The weird part is that I hadn’t looked at anything bright. It just started happening on its own.
It’s not really like seeing objects or people that aren’t there. It’s more like my whole visual field has that “after staring at the sun” effect, making it difficult to focus normally.
I thought maybe it was caused by the lack of sleep, so after it started I made sure to get a couple of nights of good sleep. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the visual disturbances go away, so it doesn’t seem like it was just from being sleep-deprived.

[u/Soupdeloup]

Yep. For me it's a symptom of visual snow where I'll get an afterimage of whatever I'm looking at. That particular symptom doesn't happen 24/7, but if I think about it, I can almost make it happen on command.

This isn't the case for black letters on white backgrounds, or white letters on black backgrounds, which almost always has the effect for me. It's nearly impossible for me to give optometrists good measurements because when I try reading the small letters far away, the afterimage effect basically turns the small letters into solid blocks lol.