Hi, I just wanted to tell you I tend to get this effect very often, even after a short time of being in darkness.. I kind of induce it with my mind sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes I feel I can actually manipulate with what I see. Sometimes it’s just a swirling of (usually rather dull) colours. They are coloured, but not brightly. Still, they are perfectly distinctable from the actual environment or the background (which usually is the ceiling). At other times, the visual information turns into a more exact form, being combined with some pre-learned experience of mine – taking forms of things. Like it is said in many places, human beings often feature in those “movies”. And for me, they are alot like movies. Haven’t had a very detailed movie for a while, but I can tell you – they are quite astonishing. It’s like as you watched a cartoon, not believing it yourself. You know it is not real, but you still see it. You focus more, but you can still see it. There even is a plot to the story. You could write it down later, if you cared to. Though, so intensly I haven’t experienced it for a while. Another thing I sometimes like to play with, mixing it with the show of colours, is the Ganzfeld effect. That’s nothing paranormal, just a brain’s function which cuts out visual information that isn’t renewed. This, however, is good soil for the prisoner’s cinema effect. Sometimes you can mix all that with light phosphenes, which isn’t particularly interesting though. Pressurizing your eyes to induce pressure phosphenes helps a great deal to enhance the visual information sent to the visual cortex. I must say, though, that I only tried pressurizing after I read about pressure phosphenes, and remembered the effect from my childhood. The prisoner’s cinema thing I have experienced for much longer and I do not believe it could be caused by any of my own mechanical actions. But I like to play with my visual perception. I’d also like to say that I write you because you said there’s a lack of first-hand accounts. Well, a friend of mine has reporter similiar things. Don’t know about the Ganzfeld effect, but he reported having the same kind of thing (prisoner’s cinema) and also the ability to manipulate with it. Okay, It would be nice if you sent me any feedback (to my mail). If not, I hope it helps you, at least.

This is actually very helpful information. However the Professor does not actually study the information on his own. He enjoys researching into known facts to find the truth.

Along those lines he would like to know the answers to a couple questions..

You say that you are “from Northern-Eastern-Europe.” Are you still there or have you moved?

When was the first time you experienced this effect? And under what circumstances?

For several years I have been experiencing something like Prisoner’s cinema, but it only happens when I close my eyes. It starts out as swirls of color, and then I see something like a checkerboard made of small squares that pulses like a speaker on it’s highest setting. After the checkerboard fades, that’s when I start to see images. Mostly they are faces, contorted so much that they frighten me, but sometimes I’ll see an image from my past, like my childhood home, or even, strangely enough, a witch flying on a broom. That one happened in the middle of the afternoon, and it was just a flash. Sometimes the images are so disturbing that I have to open my eyes and wait for them to fade. Is this Prisoner’s Cinema, or is there another explanation for these ‘visions’? Thank you for your time.

Hello, my name is Kate and I used to experience this when I was very young, maybe 5 or 6 years old. I tried to explain it to my family and they thought I was just dreaming. It would happen at night while lying in bed before sleeping. I always had a hard time falling asleep and I would keep my eyes open because I wasn’t at all tired. The blackness of the dark room would get grainy, like a photograph with noise. Then it seemed that each of the little grains would move around with surrounding grains, making swooping, spinning and swirling shapes in the darkness. These swirls took on very dull colors that would change rapidly. I could “control” these swirls or at least direct them and make them dance around to entertain me. I never experienced the swirls taking more distinct forms like people or stories or anything, but I wonder if it is possible since they seemed to be easily manipulated.
If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me! Glad to help.