Unuhi 2 points
So many reasons why people go blind.
Many blind or leally blind people are not totally blind. A totally blind person has no light perception.
Many have some. And a legally blind person can have some usable and correctable vision - for example tunnel vision, or some peripheral vision, or some plain cataract looking sight. Or some VI people have nystagmus (your eyes move on a rapid scan without your control - makes reading difficult). Some have some color vision too.
There are so many factors that go in determining one's blindness' status and it's legality. Maybe it's severe night blindness, retinitis pigmentosa, or deafblindness - where many deafblind can actually see some close range sign language or hear something with hearing aids.
I can kind of focus on seeing "the marble" - imagine like floaters in your eye, but it being a giant marble pattern when you are in a bright light such as daylight, stare at the sky, or under those terrible hospital lights. It's kind of like I could to focus seeing what's inside my eye whereas people normally see what happens in front of their eyes. I would actually love to randomly run to some eye doctors in a bar because I could spend hours trying to explain better what that looks like...
Slatters-AU 1 points
The answer is 'depends'. I know someone who went totally blind overnight, he got a disease which basically attacked his optic nerves and he wnet from 20/20 to 'nothing'. He literally sees 'nothing'. It is not like closing your eyelids and trying to focus or see with your eyes shut.
However other people see different things. I've had my retina detached multiple times in my left eye. Every single time I saw blinding white light, even with my eye shut. It was literally glowing whiteness. It was horrible and gave me headaches. Your brain is super smart though it adjusts and adapts.
The hardest question for most legally blind/low vision people to answer is 'What do you see exactly?' or 'How much can you see?' however it is one we get all the time because people are naturally curious.
Think about it the other way though, say you have 20/20. What do you see? Now describe that experience to someone who can't. Pretty hard hey?
Most peoples vision changes daily depending on if its cloudy, sunny, night time, twilight etc. Some days your eyes are just strained and tired and overworked.