Please Debunk this (blind people don't see in dreams)

Hi all,

Being the kind of person I am, interested in conspiracies and aliens, I have also got a big interest in the spiritual side of life.

I am interested in dreams and the posibbility that although most dreams are definatley messages from the subconcious, some are not, for example lucid dreams and astral projection.

I also like to speculate that some of the 'more out there' stories that involve aliens taking souls out of the body and putting them into new bodies, for example 'Sleepers' story, could be linked to astral projection and dream states.

I am sure most of us have had dreams where we feel that it was more than a dream or that we went somewhere else ect.

However, there is some evidence that suggests that this can't be true. People that make these claims often sight the fact that they were spiritually outside of their physical bodies and could see thing that otherwise they wouldn't know were there. This implies that when in astral form we don't need physcial eyes to see things.

Why then, is it that blind people do not see things in their dreams! People who have never seen since birth simply do not see anything in their dreams. Proof of this can be seen at this link:

psych.ucsc.edu...

Does this debunk people that claim dreams are some kind of spiritual journey?

I would like to beleive that dreams do mean more, but thre data clearly suggests otherwise.

What does everyone think?

Cheers

[edit on 7-4-2009 by el.rebelde]

[edit on 7-4-2009 by el.rebelde]

Because people who are blind are not used to seeing. They live using the other senses. It stands to reason that this would carry on in a dream, even if dreams happen "elsewhere". Maybe if a person who wasn't born blind, but went blind later in life, maybe they can see in dreams? I'm sure I read somewhere on my travels, that blind people have been taught how to "see" in dreams via stimulating the inner eye via meditations and stuff. No idea if it's true or not though. I've definatly heard about people who've had a NDE and were blind, could see after they died.

edit to say, blind people do dream, they just can't see in it.

[edit on 7/4/2009 by Acidtastic]

I read in GEO magazine a month back that blind people are generally not fully blind, and have a little vision and suffer lots of weird hallucinations and strange images which makes their life unpleasant.

Sorry I couldnt find a suitable web link.

Dreams are just random thoughts that the mind tries to force into a pattern, and usually fails. They're not messages from beyond or any other sort of nonsense, just your own thoughts without the restraint of the conscious mind.

I could be that they do see in dreams but simply have no reference and/or expierence with this, so they don't know they are actually seeing in dreams.

My dreams are mainly tactile visual. That is very interesting....

imagine in a dream being able to smell amazingly well... would that sitmulate and increse your ability to smell? Wow never really thought about the senses i ignore in dreams.

My father went blind when he was 16 and he says that he sees images in his dreams although they are based on what memories he has of objects He said he doesn't dream of things like computers and such as he doesn't know what they look like although in some cases his dreams switch between images and just touch and smell with darkness.

Its known that before colour TV, the majority of people used to dream in black and white. Just an example of how the dreams are effected strongly by what we consentrate on most.

Also, i have heard from various documentries and studies that we dream to prevent us "going mad" (for lack of a better term) If we leave our brain/mind to stop thinking, the effects would be mentaly very bad. You would be pritty much brain dead.

Then again, back to the question of the blind, i cant realy answer with any sources, but i believe the brain would make up certaine types of imagery from their experiance through how they see the world. The hellusinations (sorry for spelling) must have some sort of imager, surley. They could dream with words, like nerration prehaps? or various other ways.

Originally posted by Trolloks
Its known that before colour TV, the majority of people used to dream in black and white.

And before TV was even invented? Perhaps people didn't dream at all way back then? Perhaps nothing really excisted before we got TV..?

Sorry, but this theory is kind of funny.

I'll have to look into this some more. Very interesting question. Cool

I read Ray Charles autobiography a long time back. One of the things I remember most is him saying that he lost his sight around five years old IIRC. He then said that he often dreamed visually. For someone that is born blind...I wonder if they could know if they dreamed visually or not? They wouldn't necessarily have the references to know what an 'image' was

You should check out this thread, it's about a painter who is blind. He won't be featuring in the Tate, but see for yourself.

Originally posted by ziggystar60

Originally posted by Trolloks
Its known that before colour TV, the majority of people used to dream in black and white.

And before TV was even invented? Perhaps people didn't dream at all way back then? Perhaps nothing really excisted before we got TV..?

Sorry, but this theory is kind of funny.

Before TV people would of dreamt in colour because that would of been what they saw and influenced them the most. People commonly dreamt in black and white after becase TV became more influencial than real life.

Ask people who were around when there was only black and white TV and ask them if they ever used to dream in black and white when they were young, most people i asked said that they had and it was quite common.

Originally posted by Trolloks
Its known that before colour TV, the majority of people used to dream in black and white. Just an example of how the dreams are effected strongly by what we consentrate on most.

Also, i have heard from various documentries and studies that we dream to prevent us "going mad" (for lack of a better term) If we leave our brain/mind to stop thinking, the effects would be mentaly very bad. You would be pritty much brain dead.

It wasn't 'known' that we dreamed in B&W before color TV Do a little background reading in Psychology literature. Some people can dream in color and some people don't. I'm color, but several friends are B&W. Some people claim never to have visual dreams and instead relate dreams involving scent, taste, sound, emotions etc

You are dead right about the importance of dreams. Without them decision making suffers, fatigue sets in, visual/auditory hallucinations can occur. A good night's sleep and plenty of REM (dream state) are a necessity for healthy lives. All mammals need REM to survive in the world.

I used to have a dream about a star turning to a planetary nebula...

I never knew that the structure is a planetary nebula in my dream until I saw a Hubble Space Telescope image of a planetary nebula at a much later time..

Here's nearly the exact representation of the nebula I saw in my dream. Read the description www.spacetelescope.org...

But in my dream I was given a tour inside the donut structure of the nebula. I didn't know that the nebula in the link was a donut until I read the description!

Otherwise, it's the same color... Only that the nebula shown to me came from our own Sun! It was a dream about the future, no exact date given

So I don't believe that the blind can't dream based on things they see. Here I dreamed about something I never saw before even more interesting, I saw it in very high detail and accuracy.

[edit on 7-4-2009 by ahnggk]

Take a look at this documentary, it talks about people who have had NDE's. also talks about how a blind person had one also.



maybe this will help you out a bit.