Eye Floaters: Seeing spots in your vision? Doctors reveal what’s happening inside your eyes

You’ve probably seen them before, faint squiggles, dots, or thread-like shapes drifting lazily across your vision as you gaze at the sky or a bright wall. They never quite stay still, always slipping away when you try to look at them directly. For most people, these curious “floaters” are little more than an occasional distraction, but understanding what causes them, and when they might signal something more serious is worth a closer look. According to the NHS , these drifting shapes are known as floaters , and they’re usually caused by a harmless condition called posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) , a natural change in the gel-like substance inside the eye as we age. They tend to appear more clearly against plain or bright backgrounds, such as a blue sky or light-colou