It’s caused by a lack of blood flow to the eye. However, retinal migraine is a more serious condition than visual migraine. Some specialists may use the terms “visual,” “ocular,” or “ophthalmic aura” to describe retinal migraine. When you experience a visual migraine episode without a headache, it’s called an acephalgic migraine episode. You don’t necessarily get a migraine headache at the same time. The symptoms usually pass within 60 minutes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can show the activation spreading over the visual cortex as the migraine episode proceeds. This happens when the nerve endings in the back portion of the brain, known as the visual cortex, become activated. The clinical term for aura associated with ocular migraine is “scintillating scotoma.” Ocular migraine episodes most often occur in both eyes. Ocular migraine may also be called visual or ophthalmic migraine. You may need to ask a doctor to clarify if you’re told you have one of these conditions. Sometimes the terms “ocular” and “retinal” are used in place of one another, but they’re different. It’s seen in about 25% of people who have migraine. The most common cause of kaleidoscope vision is migraine with aura, which can be ocular or retinal.

Hemiplegic migraine: During a hemiplegic migraine episode, the limbs on one side of your body and the muscles of your face might become weak.

Dysphasic aura: Your speech is disrupted, and you forget words or can’t say what you mean.

Sensory aura: You’ll experience tingling in your fingers that spread up your arm, sometimes reaching one side of your face and tongue.

Symptoms that can accompany migraine with auraĪt the same time as the visual aura episode, or after it, you may also experience other types of aura or migraine episodes.

objects appearing too large or too small, or too close or far away.

a sensation of looking through water or heat waves.

blind spots, tunnel vision, or total loss of vision for a short period.

a faint, foggy area surrounded by zigzag lines that can grow and break up over time.

dots, stars, spots, squiggles, and “flashbulb” effects.

zigzag lines that often shimmer (they may be colored or black and silver, and they may appear to move across your field of vision).

Some of the other symptoms you may experience from migraine with aura include: Therefore, it’s important to see an ophthalmologist (a type of eye doctor who can examine, diagnose, and treat eye conditions) if you experience kaleidoscope vision or any other aura effect, especially for the first time. A TIA can be a precursor to a stroke that could be life threatening. Kaleidoscope vision and other aura effects may also be symptoms of more serious conditions, including a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or a ministroke. This makes it more likely that the cause is ocular migraine. If you see the distorted image in each eye separately, the problem is probably coming from the part of your brain involved in vision and not from the eyes themselves. One way to determine if you’re seeing it in both eyes is to cover one and then the other. But this can be hard to determine because it may appear only in a part of the visual field.

You’ll usually see the distorted image in both eyes. In kaleidoscope vision, the images you see may appear broken up and brightly colored, like the image in a kaleidoscope. It’s usually followed by a migraine headache, but not always. The aura episode may last anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour. An aura episode may include feelings of numbness or tingling, weakness, and trouble speaking, as well as visual disturbances that affect both eyes.

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