Something

   my @pixels;

    #Read it into an array
    for my $x ($width) {
        for my $y ($height) {
            $pixels[$x][$y] = $bmp->xy( $x, $y );
        }
    }
    print Dumper(@pixels);
    return ( $total_pixels, \@pixels );

OUTPUT OF THAT IS:

[Image::BMP] ERROR: xy(5,8) is out of bounds [5x8] at Neural/Image.pm line 28
@pixels = (
            undef,
            undef,
            undef,
            undef,
            undef,
            [
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef,
              undef
            ]
          );