Thread: What do Blind people dream?

omg, thhere was a thread about this soooooo long ago! i think its in memorable topics
basically, you dream what you know, and if you do't know it, you make it up.
you work from that

Oh, I did a bit of research on this one a while back...

Turns out that it depends on the moment when the dreamer lost his or her sight. If they lost it before the age of five (or somewhere around there) or they were born blind, then they have no sight in their dreams, but otherwise, they can see. Come to think of it, that would make detecting dreams really easy for those who lost their sight later on...

Of course they do! Just because they don't see the same way other people do doesn't mean they can't see! They probably dream better than we do!

aw man, this absolutey sucks, because I just wrote, then accidentally deleted a huge response to this topic.

But to feck with it, I'm going to again, but maybe a little different. lol

Look, I opened this thread hoping a blind person provided input. This may sound crazy, and if so, so be it...existence and consciousness is about pattern. Or so I believe, forgive me if I come across aggresivelly sure of myself and my babble.


I'll put it like this:

Pattern is about realtionships. Colour and tone is about the same, as in differentiations in tone and the colour spectrum. That's the same with sound. It's all about shape. Sound can create dimensions upon dimensions of structure and peculiarity and particulairty (I mean what I'm saying here by the way, not just showboating 'big' words. I'm trying to be precise in the blurry that is this question...), Pattern is life. Pattern is conflict. Now, linguistically, unfortunately, most of us are led to believe that 'conflict' is a negative thing. War, fighting, etc, etc...On the contrary, it's plus versus minus, male/ female. 1/0, it's binary, it's relations. Forgive me, but that's the only way I can really envision life, because I have a brain. Every decision and thought and experience for me is only such in comparison to what it might not be, and so on...One thing is what it is because it's not the other thing...Haha, so many uses of words like ' things'. and so on, but fuck it, that's what it's like.

I have wondered MANY times what it's like to dream being blind. But, I can ONLY wonder. However, if you are blind, deaf and paralized from head to toe...Your still alive. What world you experience, only someone in such a position can experience and know. Fuck, I sincerely hope I don't come across as condescending here, but sometimes, we have SO much to learn from say autistic people (just as an example). Therein begs the question as to what extent we 'see'? As long as there's some form of life within a person. That's a life. That's their life. Their world. Their experience, and ultimately, their VISION.

Lex, fair play for standing up for the 'underdog'.

*Takes a bow*
"I knew a man that lost his sight, I don't pity him for he sees more than I ever will."
That is so true!

Originally Posted by ZenOutlook

If they lost it before the age of five (or somewhere around there) or they were born blind, then they have no sight in their dreams, but otherwise, they can see. Come to think of it, that would make detecting dreams really easy for those who lost their sight later on...

NEW GUARANTEED LUCIDITY TECHNIQUE!

Actually I think I'm too attached to my eyeballs to try that one.

Hai, agreed fully!

well, thanks for your imput, but I am still wondering about people blind from birth and what they "see" do they have the concept of colors? i guess i'm going a little off-topic here...

I think I saw this on reader's digest once when I was freaking young, not that that's really long ago.

It is said that people who have been born blind inherit memories of some sort through their genes. Do not come and contest me with the specifics, because I know I suck at it, so feel free to correct me, if you've got something better.

But basically, blind people DO dream of things as we normal beings do, except maybe they have less defined dreams than we do. But the thing is, even if they have never seen anything before, in a way, they still see something, through the memories of the parents that they have inherited through their dreams.

If someone has an official article, that would be nice.

Originally Posted by flamerwiz

If someone has an official article, that would be nice.

Google "blind dreams" and the first result says ZenOutlook is right. Maybe the Readers Digest isn't a wonderfully reliable source for this sort of thing :-).

I can't fully answer this question but I'll give it my best guess.

If they have only recently become blind, then they could dream "normal" dreams with pictures, they have seen before losing their sight, as well as dreaming in black.

If they have always been blind, they will most likely have senses in their dreams, with a black "screen". For example more uses of sounds, smell ect.

ROUTER

Hello Router:
Thats an interesting question!
Another one that relates to your is if the blind have NDE's or
Near Death Experiences.

Dr.Kenneth Ring's book Lessons From the LIght talks about this.
Has some mind blowing thought and examples to share. See if your library has the book or order it from the book store.

Neavo, I heard blind people don't "see" black. Like, in front of their eyes is nothing, not black either. If you close your eyes in a certain way you can relate. I guess there is black there, but its not really like you're looking at it, hard to see.

My theory is that NO, if blind from birth they dream as they sense in waking life. People often misinterpret "anything is possible in a dream." Dreams are a composite of memories and such, so if they never have a memory of seeing then they can't in a dream. And I do not think that any age, as ZenOutlook said, affects if you see in a dream. I doubt that memories are "erased" after certain ages like that, simply repressed and such. I think that if they could see at any point in their life they could have a dream of it.

Originally Posted by ataraxis

Neavo, I heard blind people don't "see" black. Like, in front of their eyes is nothing, not black either. If you close your eyes in a certain way you can relate. I guess there is black there, but its not really like you're looking at it, hard to see.

My theory is that NO, if blind from birth they dream as they sense in waking life. People often misinterpret "anything is possible in a dream." Dreams are a composite of memories and such, so if they never have a memory of seeing then they can't in a dream. And I do not think that any age, as ZenOutlook said, affects if you see in a dream. I doubt that memories are "erased" after certain ages like that, simply repressed and such. I think that if they could see at any point in their life they could have a dream of it.

right, like i said, you dream what you know, and you can only dream what you know. anything else will be a kind of subconscious guess.if you could at one point see, then you will see. if you cant, then you will make a guess. i think, like someone said, hearing might compensate for vision in a way, like you can judge distance, depth, size, and shape. feeling things helps too. based on this, a blind person might guess what vision is LIKE. i have no idea about colors and light though.

Router:

If your really interested, you might look up a school for the blind. Make up a questionair and send it to the school. I'm sure you would get some response.

When I was living in Seattle Washingto, there was a group of NDE'r there whose meeting was open to the public. One of the people was a young woman blind from birth. She had a near-death experience. It was the first time she had ever SEEN anything. She said she had no idea what it was....had never seen colors before so had no words for that either.

an interesting side story was of a woman who had her sight completely restored. When someone held out an object for her to identify for the very first time as a sighted person, she simple said, let me touch the object and I'll tell you what it is. Just Imgagine that!

Rob

That's interesting about the blind woman having to touch something to "see" it after she was given sight. There's a book out now about a man who regained his sight, but I can't remember the name and a quick search didn't find it. The front cover is all black and the title is written in the colors of the rainbow getting progressively bigger. I want to go to the store and pick it up.

First of all I am not blind but it seems to me that a big part of dreams are the emotions behind the dreams and of course blind people have emotions. So would their dreams be a series of emotions and sensations of all other things they experience in the world minus sight. Maybe I'll try walking around with my eyes shut in my next lucid dream and see what happens. Who knows?

Well i think blind people would have dreams just like everyone els because there
just blind there isent actualy anything wrong with there sub-consiose. however i could be completly wrong

Being blind is just a physical thing. I think if they weren't born blind, their dreams would be totally normal. I guess it would be the same if some guy ost his arm, and he had a dream where he had it back.

But, if you're born blind, I think it would be a little different. I have never had a dream where I have had more senses than those I was born with, so I think it would apply just the same with sight.

If they were born blind they only have audio dreams. If they became blind during their lifetime over age 5 they should be able to have dreams, but they may be vague or the images could be skewed or inaccurate

Yes! Right On!

This is something I never thought about but it is deep. I have heard stories about people who have lost limbs still feel the removed limb(s).

and if a blind person.... guessed what something looked like?....

then again, there would be no concept of sight at all.

though... blind people who learn to AP have full "sight"(?) when they do.

They dream all sounds, touch, smell, and taste... obviously...

But if it is a blind person that DID have sight at one time, they dream with visuals also.

I bet a lucid is weird.