How does Cyclops work?

It is an increasingly confusing and maddening world, but there was only one question that my brain wouldn't let go of at 4.14am this morning - Can Cyclops see when he's blasting away?

Even after reading X-Men comics for the vast majority of my life, I still have no real idea how Cyclops' powers work, or if it's ever been address. Can he see when he uses the awesome power of his optic blasts? Is he looking down the shaft of the ruby beam? Or does he just literally see red?

There are many, many more things I could have been worried about in the depth of the night, on both a personal and global level, and it's almost obscene to be thinking about such ephemeral trivia as the world, but the brain goes where the brain goes. I don't have any control of the fucking thing.