Recent advances in vestibular physiology have led to a better appreciation of the pathophysiological significance and the clinical diagnostic implications of various types of “afternystagmus”. Afternystagmus will be defined here as a nystagmus that appears after or outlasts any stimulus that leads to a real (e.g. actual body rotation) or perceived (e.g. the feeling of self motion associated with full field optokinetic stimulation) sense of body rotation. We will first briefly review types of afternystagmus that are shown by normal subjects, and then concentrate upon an analysis of two prototypical types of “pathological” afternystagmus that can appear in patients : headshaking induced nystagmus (HSN) and periodic alternating nystagmus (PAN).