Close your eyes in the darkroom

[Bob McCarthy]

It's surprising how sensitive dark-adapted eyes are. True pitch darkness is pretty hard to come by.

I feel that I can see my hands in front of me in the fuzzy, digital way someone mentioned.

But when I move my hands, nothing moves in my faux vision.

The mind does play tricks....

bob

[E. von Hoegh]

Are you old enough to know about those sensory deprivation chamber experiments with LSD?

Mescaline was good too.

[Tom J McDonald]

I close my eyes when I brush my teeth.

[SteveH]

I do the same. I think that since as a sighted person you are trying to rely on other senses than sight, closing your eyes tells your brain to start thinking spatially rather than visually.
We have more than 5 senses. Proprioception is our spatial sense, our awareness of where our body is in space. A person with little or no proprioception could not clap their hands or touch their nose without looking. Closing your eyes probably helps to mentally 'activate' this sense.

As for the 'ghost' image of your hand; I think its a similar thing as I have noticed that too. It could be psychological - your brain creating a slight visual residue based on its proprioceptual information.
I have done a few 10 day meditation sessions where you spend most of the time sitting with your eyes closed. I found after a week or so I felt I could 'see' the room I was in, probably from a heightened spatial and aural awareness.

Just my theory
cheers
Steve

[Black Lightning]

I have developed the habit of keeping my eyes open looking for light in places where it does not belong.

[Michael Clark]

When developing film, if I close my eyes I will node off and overdevelop the film.
Mike

[joselsgil]

Why or why do people (including me) have a habit of pressing their eyelids shut when in the darkroom, as if closing your eyes will make it darker? Is this some sort of biological phenomenon?

Cyrus,

I don't close my eyes when in the darkroom as you need to have them open to focus when making a print. Besides that, with the red or amber safe light on, you can see what you are doing and where you are going. Are you referring to keeping your eyes closed when loading film in the dark?
I was taught way, way back in high school to close your eyes when first learning to load film onto developing reels. Since you learn to do this in a light classroom, you close your eyes to mimic being in the totally dark film loading closet/room. Later in collage, I learned that if you keep your eyes open in total darkness, you tend not to blink and this tends to dry your eyes causing irritation on your eyes. The longest time I spent in total darkness loading film onto reels, was 1 hour. I was loading 18 35mm reels for a nitrogen burst development tanks. After one hour in total darkness, you tend to loose your perception and depth. I was so happy just to see the faint glow of the GraLab clock when I exited the loading room.
As for closing one's eyes when kissing. I think that started when our ancestors had to kiss ugly cave women.

Jose

[UberSquid]

Some people will experience a slight vertigo type sensation if they keep their eyes open in complete darkness. Your brain uses multiple inputs to create it's image of the world around you. Fluid in your ears senses motion and changes in physical position that you then correlate with the visual input with your eyes. If the two don't match up then your brain starts trying to adjust and you get into vertigo. (Anyone who has ever taken flight training will attest to this!) I feel that I move more smoothly in the dark with my eyes closed since I'm not trying to fight conflicting sensory inputs. Ever notice that people who are feeling nauseated tend to close their eyes?

As to the ghost images, I just read an article about some blind people actually having vision, it's just not processed the same. It may be something similar, your brain is taking those inputs that it still has, touch, motion, memory and creating a very hazy image in your mind. It is an interesting topic, maybe one that would be worth investigating on a clinical level.

[ljsegil]

Open. It's too pretty looking at all the little green lights on the GFI outlets.
LJ

[Scratched Glass]

The only time I closed my eyes for a long period in the darkroom was after I smashed my head into one of the enlargers where I used to work.