Entoptic Patterns. Oooh, make it stop, please...
These are the images which are examined by J D Lewis-Williams and T A Dowson (1988) and Richard Bradley (1989) These are the entoptic images which are examined by J D Lewis-Williams and T A Dowson in their 1988 article "The Signs of All Times". They postulate that these images, which derive from effects within the central nervous system, form the basis for images in Palæolithic art. Softology's Channel Ultimaya1235's Channel FractalSex's Channel Mandelbulb: The Unravelling of the Real 3D Mandelbrot Fractal. Opening Pandora's Box For the Second Time ur story starts with a guy named Rudy Rucker, an American mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author (and in fact one of the founders of the cyberpunk science-fiction movement).
Around 20 years ago, along with other approaches, he first imagined the concept behind the potential 3D Mandelbulb (barring a small mistake in the formula, which nevertheless still can produce very interesting results - see later), and also wrote a short story about the 3D Mandelbrot in 1987 entitled "As Above, So Below" (also see his blog entry and notebook).