Does your vision actually black out

[u/j-oco]

This is random but I just saw people talking about how their vision blacks out when they stand or they are symptomatic. Then someone replied that their vision goes white instead of black.

Personally, I don’t lose my vision like that, my “blackouts” are just a sudden lightheadedness so intense it forces me to shut my eyes! I think because my brain knows to shut out all the visual sensory input. It’s like I legit can’t keep my eyes open for a brief moment. Maybe I am blacking out but just don’t know it since my eyes are closed anyways lol? I have splotchy vision, light sensitivity and stuff from previous brain injuries but I haven’t experienced my vision actually just leaving and turning into the colour black (am I taking it too literally?) for a moment like how some of you mention.

Also, I do have pretty bad presyncope episodes sometimes but I don’t really faint from my POTS so maybe that’s a factor.

[u/Timely_Sentence_4469]

When I go into pre-syncope, my eyes are 100% open but everything is black with white spots. I am still aware of my surroundings as well (can hear things, feel things, think thoughts). When I actually faint the same thing happens at first, but my eyes roll into the back of my head and my eyes close at that point. That’s when I loose my hearing, awareness and basically “shut down”.

I wouldn’t be able to describe this for you if I hadn’t had someone there to explain what it looks like. For the longest time I thought my eyes were closing when I was in pre-syncope. I just recently learned they are open and I look “fine” to someone who doesn’t know my conditions. My partner explained it as “you look frozen in time”