Stringy mucus in the eye
People who don’t have a good, watery layer on the eye surface experience friction and strain when they blink. And that causes the tear film to secrete more mucus to make up for the missing layer of moisture. Esen Akpek, M.D. at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Wilmer Eye Institute, says it’s a “compensation mechanism of the eye to overcome the lack of good volume.”