It's a medical condition -- putty dots (although I can't find a medical reference on the Internet.

Two nights ago, I woke up with a sharp pain in my last working eye -- it felt like a microscopic shard of glass under my eyelid.  When I woke up & blinked a couple of times, the pain subsided, but when I woke up my vision was jacked, badly.  I had seen an eye doctor just a week earlier, and my (corrected) vision in that eye was a little better than 20-25, which for an old fogey like me is pretty good.  The eye doctor agreed to squeeze me in without an appointment.

My vision was worse than 20-40, and I was getting blurring ghost images, sometimes as many as four or five ghosts.  The doctor took a good close look and determined that I had "putty dots".  It seems that during the night, my eye dried out, and the inside of my eyelid stuck to my cornea, and when I experienced REM, several cells on my cornea were torn loose.  That makes sense -- I fell asleep with the ceiling fan on.

The good news is that the blurred vision is temporary.  Yesterday, I couldn't read anything -- today, I'm 70% recovered -- things are still slightly blurry.  Hopefully, tomorrow...

But I just wanted to share -- I never heard of "putty dots".

Did your ophthalmologist offer any recommendations for preventive care?

When it happened to me (I fell asleep in a pair of Boston Gas-Permeable Contact Lenses) they called it "corneal abrasion."

It's a BITCH.

Thanks, all.

Although my vision has not returned to normal yet, it is getting better every day.

The only "treatment" recommended (besides patience) is liberal usage of artificial tears -- the kind without preservatives (that come in tiny little one-dose vials). 

And don't fall asleep under a ceiling fan.