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The Fascinating World of Dreams for the Blind: Do They Experience Visuals?

Last night, my partner and one of our friends were having an interesting conversation when an intriguing question arose: do blind people dream in color? This simple yet thought-provoking question led to a cascade of other questions: Do blind people even dream visually, or are their dreams based on their other senses—sound, touch, taste, and smell? The more we thought about it, the more curious I became, so I decided to do a bit of research. The findings turned out to be fascinating and surprising in some ways.

It’s interesting to note that blind people, while they understand the concept of sight, don’t actually experience it in the same way as sighted people. It’s almost like how we, as non-psychic individuals, can comprehend the idea of telepathy but can’t actually read minds. Just as we can conceptualize telepathy, blind people can conceptualize sight, but they don’t experience it. So, it makes sense that they don’t see in their dreams, just as they don’t see in their waking life.

Ever wondered what blind people dream about? Their dreams are shaped by their senses—sound, touch, and smell—rather than sight.

For people born blind, their dreams are shaped entirely by their remaining senses—hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Their experience of the world is deeply rooted in those sensory modalities, and their dreams reflect this. Their dreams may be vibrant and full of sound, textures, and smells, but there are no visual elements. This idea might seem surprising to some, but it’s all about the way their brains process information and construct their world.

However, the situation is slightly different for people who were born with sight and later lost their vision. According to a 2014 Danish study on this topic, blind people who had vision at birth often do dream in pictures. Initially, their dreams include vivid imagery, which makes sense given that they had the experience of seeing before. But over time, these visual dreams become less frequent, and the person’s dreams evolve. As the years go by and as their brain adjusts to life without sight, their dreams gradually shift from being visually-based to relying more on the other senses.

This phenomenon is quite similar to how we might forget the exact features of people we haven’t seen in years if we don’t have photos to remind us. Over time, our memories fade, and the new memories—shaped by what we experience in the present—push out the old ones. In the case of blind individuals who once had vision, their new memories, built around non-visual experiences, eventually replace the visual aspects of their dreams.

One particularly intriguing aspect of this research was the finding that people who were born blind tend to experience more nightmares than their sighted counterparts—up to four times as many, in fact. Now, nightmares are typically considered mental rehearsals. Psychologists believe that they allow us to process distressing or fearful events in our lives, often helping us cope with those situations in our waking lives. For sighted people, nightmares might revolve around common fears—getting lost, losing loved ones, or being chased by something scary. But for people born blind, their nightmares tend to be more rooted in the unique challenges they face every day.

For example, a blind person might have a nightmare about getting lost in a public place like a mall or a store, or they might dream about a dangerous situation, such as crossing a street and being hit by a car. Some might even dream about losing their guide dogs, which are essential to their mobility. These types of nightmares are deeply tied to the real fears and dangers that blind people navigate on a daily basis, making them more vivid and frequent in their dream world. The study showed that these types of anxieties seem to form a large part of their nightmare landscape.

Moreover, when you dig deeper into the etymology of the word “blind,” it’s interesting to note that the term itself comes from the Pre-Germanic word “blendos,” which means “to make murky.” It reflects the idea of lacking clarity or being unable to see, and it ties in with the experience of blindness in a symbolic way, as blindness can create a sense of murkiness or fog around the world and how one interacts with it. This historical connection highlights the long-standing significance of the concept of blindness, both in literal and figurative terms.

In conclusion, the way blind people dream is shaped by their experiences in the world. While people born blind experience dreams through their senses other than sight, those who lost their vision later in life still carry with them some visual elements in their dreams, though these tend to fade over time. Additionally, the increase in nightmares among the blind highlights how their daily experiences and challenges influence their dream patterns. It’s a reminder that the way we experience and process the world around us deeply impacts how we engage with our inner worlds, including our dreams.

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