For many people living with Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS), explaining what they see can be one of the most difficult parts of the condition. Visual disturbances such as persistent static, afterimages, trailing, and light sensitivity are experienced within a person’s own visual field, which means family members, friends, and healthcare professionals cannot directly see what the individual is experiencing.
Peter Szigeti knows this challenge firsthand. His experience with Visual Snow Syndrome began in childhood, years before he knew there was a name for what he was seeing. That journey eventually led him to develop a new resource designed to help people with VSS communicate their symptoms more clearly.
Peter Szigeti’s Experience With Visual Snow Syndrome
Peter remembers experiencing migraines and significant light sensitivity as a child. Reading books was also difficult, and he knew that something about his vision did not feel quite right. Without an explanation for what he was experiencing, Peter began searching for answers.
At one point, he came across information about the blue field entoptic phenomenon. Some aspects seemed familiar, but it did not fully match what he was seeing. Eventually, Peter discovered a Wikipedia article about Visual Snow. For the first time, he recognized his own visual experience in what he was reading. After years of knowing that something was different, he finally had a name for it.
Today, Peter says his daily life feels largely normal, although migraines and light sensitivity remain part of his experience. He typically has one or two migraines per month, sometimes more and sometimes fewer.
Direct light hitting his eyes is one of his most significant migraine triggers. When this happens, the effects can last for one or two days, so avoiding direct light is an important part of managing his symptoms. Night driving was another challenge, but Peter found that prescription glasses made a significant difference and greatly improved his ability to drive at night.
Another important turning point came when Peter found Visual Snow support groups. As these communities began gaining traction and more information became available, Peter connected with people who shared similar experiences. He was able to learn how others described their symptoms, discover different ways people coped with the condition, and recognize that there were many others navigating similar challenges.
Peter’s journey with VSS has taken many years and is still ongoing. Along the way, he has also noticed something interesting about his own visual snow. When he becomes deeply involved in creating something, his focus shifts and the symptoms become less noticeable.
As Peter describes it, when he is deeply focused, the “snow melts away.”
His experiences also led him to think about a larger challenge faced by people with VSS. If visual snow exists entirely within someone’s visual field, how can they accurately show another person what they are seeing?
That question became part of his inspiration for the Visual Snow Simulator he developed.
A New Visual Snow Simulator Resource
Peter developed the Visual Snow Simulator to help people recreate and communicate some of the visual disturbances associated with Visual Snow Syndrome. The simulator allows users to adjust visual effects so they can create an approximation of their own experience rather than relying on one general representation of VSS.
The resource is now available on iOS and Android, along with a browser-based version that works across a wide range of devices, including many mobile browsers.
What Does the Visual Snow Simulator Do?
The Visual Snow Simulator allows users to recreate and adjust several visual phenomena associated with VSS, including:
- Visual static or snow
- Afterimages
- Trailing
- Light sensitivity effects
Each parameter can be adjusted independently, allowing users to create a visual representation that more closely reflects what they personally experience. This is important because Visual Snow Syndrome can look different from one person to another. One individual may experience very fine visual static, while another may notice stronger afterimages, trailing, or sensitivity to light.
How Can the Simulator Help?
One of the main goals of Peter’s Visual Snow Simulator is to make communication easier. People with VSS often have to rely on words such as “static,” “snow,” “afterimages,” or “trailing” to describe what they see. For someone who has never experienced these symptoms, those descriptions can be difficult to imagine.
The simulator provides another way to explain the experience. A user can adjust the visual effects until they resemble what they see and then share that configuration with a family member, friend, or healthcare professional. It can also serve as an awareness and educational tool for people who want to better understand Visual Snow Syndrome.
Creating a More Consistent Way to Describe Visual Symptoms
Peter’s work on the simulator is also connected to a larger project called OpenVisual.
He created the Open Visual Symptom Standard as a way to represent visual disturbances numerically.
The idea is to move beyond broad descriptions such as “mild static” or “strong afterimages” and create a more structured way of recording the specific characteristics of someone’s symptoms.
By assigning values to different visual parameters, Peter hopes people may eventually be able to document their symptoms more consistently and compare changes over time.
This is also why the iOS version of the simulator includes “OV” in its name.
The simulator provides a practical way for users to adjust visual symptoms, while the OpenVisual standard explores how those settings could also become a more consistent form of data.
Looking Ahead
Peter is also working toward a virtual reality version of the simulator. A VR version could provide a more immersive first-person representation of Visual Snow Syndrome, allowing people to experience visual disturbances across a much larger field of view. Peter hopes this could eventually be useful for medical education, awareness, and research.
His longer-term plans extend beyond simulation. Peter has also created a live research summary outlining a broader research direction involving the simulator, wearable EEG technology, biofeedback, and physiological measurements. The goal is to explore whether subjective visual symptoms can eventually be paired with measurable data, creating a more objective way to study changes in VSS symptoms and potentially support future research into diagnosis and therapeutic approaches.
Peter’s own journey began with trying to understand what he was seeing. Years later, that experience has helped inspire a resource designed to help others show what they see too.
Learn More and Access the Visual Snow Simulator
iOS App:
https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/visual-snow-simulator-ov/id6783093907
Android App:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.visualsnow.simulator
Browser-Based Visual Snow Simulator:
https://visualsnow.pages.dev/simulator/
OpenVisual:
https://openvisual.org/
Research Summary and Plans:
https://visualsnow.pages.dev/research