Dreams From The Blind?

First of all, this isn’t a huge topic just a simple question where I’m finding it hard to find the answer too.

Question: If a person is blind from birth what does he/she see in their dreams? If they have any?

Answer: ??????


Any suggestions.

They have dreams of sounds/tastes/physical feelings like wind against the skin, dog fur, etc.

Whatever they can sense they dream of...

Everyone dreams according to their level of perception, or perceptions they've had in the past.
If a person has never seen anything in their whole life, they will not see anything in their dreams. If they lost their sight later in life though, they may still see things.

reply to post by Astrithr


Thats what i thought, but you must see something in the dream, i just cant get my head around it.

Good question. I was born deaf and was until I was 4 and had an operation that fixed it. I can clearly remember thinking with sounds in my head although I had never heard any sounds before. Maybe it is the same concept?

reply to post by Alpal

Interesting question. Blind people do dream; having worked with blind people over the years I can vouch for that. However, as others have said, what they perceive in their dreams from a visual perspective depends upon their own experience of such perception.

A guy I knew who had been totally blind since birth gave me an fascinating insight. One sunny, cloudless day we were waiting for our tram and I mentioned to him that the sky was clear and blue, then I asked him how he imagined sky blue as a color. He told me: "I imagine it as a happy color."

In other words, he related colors to emotion. In fact, we all do to some degree, which is one reason why movie makers and the like use various forms of lighting and colors to facilitate the creation of the desired moods or emotional effects in their productions. (The same goes for TV ads. The "before" image is often grayscale or at least rather dull, the "after" is usually well lit and in bright, "happy" colors.)

So, for him, what we would perceive as colors in dreams could be replaced by layers or mixes of emotion.

Here's a thought: we all know that we are surrounded by various types of electromagnetic radiation at all times. Some EM we perceive as visible light (or the absence of it), others we sense as heat, others fall outside the general range of perception for most humans. Magnetic fields would be a good example of this. However, research has shown that some animals actually "see" magnetic fields. Pigeons do, to name one. Hypothetically, then, if pigeons dream, they might see magnetic fields in their dreams.

So consider this: do we "see" magnetic fields in our dreams, or "see" IR or UV frequencies of light? I certainly never have, at least not in a way that I'm aware of. Even though I'm aware of the existence of the other EM frequencies, they don't form a recognisable part of my "dream world" per se. That doesn't mean that they cannot be present in my dreams (as they might be), only that my conscious recall of those dreams has no way to fit in such perceptions and make them recognisable when I try to recall whatever I dreamed (or dreamt ).

The point I'm making is that it's possible that some blind people actually "see" in their dreams, but having no reference point for those perceptions within their conscious awareness, they don't recognize what they "see" as visual but instead fit in into their reference framework of perception, based upon what they know.

Sorry if that sounds a bit clumsy. I'm just writing this straight out so it might be a bit hard to follow. But I hope I've got the idea across.


Best regards,

Mike

reply to post by Alpal


how can't you get your head around it. They never perceived light therefore they can not visualize it in dreams. Dreams are made up of life experiences, memories, and imagination. You can't imagine light if you never saw it. Try to picture a color that doesn't exist. You can't.

My mom is in her early 60's, lost her sight completely at 12, but still dreams in color.

Its like JustMike posted, colors are more sensations than actual visualizations to her anymore. She thinks of blue as cool, red as hot, and yellow as sunshine on her face.

By the way, yellow is still her favorite color.

Originally posted by mnmcandiez
reply to post by Alpal

 

how can't you get your head around it. They never perceived light therefore they can not visualize it in dreams. Dreams are made up of life experiences, memories, and imagination. You can't imagine light if you never saw it. Try to picture a color that doesn't exist. You can't.

I don't think that's strictly fair, Alpal's asked an interesting question here, something that I'd be interested in knowing whether it's the same nothingness for all blind from birth people or if some have different experiences. Some people believe in past lives, I don't know much about that, but could a blind person have visual dreams because they could see in another lifetime?

reply to post by Alpal


I don't know about dreams

But I remember this amazing documentary I saw once, it was about near death experiences.
One of the people in it, that described the experience was indeed blind.

The incredible thing was, although she'd been blind from birth, she described everything in the room, including what the medical staff were wearing and doing !!

So yeah, blind people may very well see dreams....

Mmmmm, we SOOOO need to find out, cos its a real interesting question baby