Can blind people dream? (7 photos). What do blind people see? Do the blind dream or not?
Very often people with good vision are interested in the question: what do blind people see? Many people think that they see black with an admixture of luminous spots (this is what we see when we close our eyes). However, this is not quite true. The picture of the world of a blind person depends largely on the age at which he lost his sight. If this happened in adulthood, then he will think like a sighted person and perceive the sun as yellow and the grass as green. If a person was born blind, then he simply does not know what darkness or a golden glow looks like. Therefore, if you ask him about what he sees, most likely he will answer: “Emptiness,” and he will not lie.
Let's conduct a simple experiment and look at the world through the eyes of a blind person. To do this, you need to close one eye with your hand and focus on some object with the other. Now answer the question: what does your closed eye see? That's right, he sees emptiness.
Dreams of the Blind
Let us note that the situation is approximately the same with dreams. A person who lost his sight in adulthood will tell you that at first he had dreams with colorful pictures. Then it all disappeared, and the images were replaced by sounds, smells and tactile sensations. At the same time, a person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in dreams.
Let's say we dream of a sandy beach. A sighted person will be able to enjoy all the details of this place: the azure ocean, white sandy shore, colorful hammock and bright sun. A person blind from birth will smell the sea water, the blow of the wind, the heat of the sun, hear the sound of an incoming wave, feel the sand on his fingers. Video blogger Tomi Edison, who has been blind since childhood, describes his dreams as follows:
I dream the same thing as you. For example, I can be sitting at a football game and a moment later find myself at my seven-year-old birthday party.
Of course, he doesn’t see any of the above. His dreams consist of sounds, tastes, tactile sensations and smells. It is these feelings that help Tomi Edison, like any other blind person, navigate space in reality and in dreams.
Can blind people see bright light?
For several decades, scientists have wondered whether blind people see anything. In 1923, Harvard University graduate student Clyde Keeler discovered in a scientific experiment that they cannot see, but their pupils can react to bright light.
80 years later, his colleagues from Harvard continued their research and discovered special light-sensitive cells ipRGCs in the eye. It turned out that they are located in the nerves that conduct signals from the retina to the brain. ipRGCs react to light, but do not affect vision in any way. Most people and animals have such cells, so even completely blind people can see bright light.
When we close our eyes, we usually see black, sometimes mixed with luminous spots. By this picture we mean “see nothing.” But how do those whose eyes are always “closed” see the world?
Plunge into darkness
What is darkness for a blind person and how does he see it? In general, a blind person’s picture of the world largely depends on how old he was when he lost his sight. If this happened already at a conscious age, then the person thinks in the same images as sighted people. He simply receives information about them using other senses. So, hearing the rustling of leaves, he imagines trees, warm sunny weather will be associated with a blue sky, and so on. If a person lost his sight in childhood, after the age of five, he can remember colors and understand their meaning. In other words, he will know what the standard seven colors of the rainbow look like and their shades. But visual memory will still be poorly developed. For such people, perception is based largely on hearing and touch.
People who have never seen the sun's vision imagine the world completely differently. Being blind from birth or from infancy, they do not know either the images of the world or its colors. For them, vision, like visual perception, means nothing, since the area of the brain responsible for converting visual information into an image simply does not work for them.
When asked what they see before their eyes, they will most likely answer that nothing. Or rather, they simply will not understand the question, since they do not have a developed association of the object with the image. They know the names of colors and objects, but they don't know what they should look like. This once again proves the inability of the blind, who managed to regain their sight, to recognize objects familiar to them by touch after seeing them with their own eyes. Therefore, a blind person will never be able to explain what color real darkness is, because he cannot see it.
Tactile dreams
The situation is similar with dreams. People who have lost their sight at a conscious age, according to their own stories, continue to see dreams “with pictures” for some time. But as time passes, they are replaced by sounds, smells, and tactile sensations. A person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in his dreams. But he will feel it. Suppose we have a dream in which we are on a sandy beach. A sighted person will most likely see the beach itself, the ocean, sand, and an incoming wave. A blind person will hear the sound of a wave, feel the sand pouring through his fingers, and feel a light breeze. Video blogger Tomi Edison, who has been blind since birth, describes his dreams as follows: “I dream the same thing as you. For example, I can be sitting at a football game and a moment later find myself at my seven-year-old birthday party.” Of course, he doesn't see all this. But he hears sounds that evoke corresponding associations in him.
Echolocation
Sighted people receive 90% of information through their eyes. Vision is the main sense organ for humans. For a blind person, this 90% or, according to some versions, 80% comes from hearing. Therefore, most blind people have very sensitive hearing, which a sighted person can only envy - in their midst there are often excellent musicians, for example, jazz performer Charles Ray or virtuoso pianist Art Tatum. Not only can blind people truly hear and closely follow sounds, but in some cases they can also use echolocation. True, for this you need to learn to recognize sound waves reflected by surrounding objects, determine the position, distance and size of objects located nearby.
Modern researchers no longer classify this method as a fantastic ability. The method of using echolocation for the blind was developed by the American Daniel Kish, who was also blind from early childhood. At 13 months, he had both eyes removed. A blind child’s natural desire to understand the world resulted in his using the method of reflecting sound from different surfaces. It is also used by bats that live in complete darkness, and by dolphins that use echolocation to navigate the ocean.
Thanks to his unique way of “seeing,” Daniel managed to live the life of an ordinary child, in no way inferior to his more fortunate peers. The essence of his method is simple: he constantly clicks his tongue, sending a sound in front of him, which is reflected from different surfaces and gives him an idea of the objects around him. In fact, the same thing happens when blind people tap a stick - the sound of the stick on the road, bounces off surrounding surfaces and conveys some information to the person.
However, Daniel's method has not yet become widespread. In particular, in America, where it originated, according to the American National Federation of Blind People, it was considered “too complex.” But today technology has come to the aid of a good idea.
Two years ago, Israeli scientists developed a special Sonar Vision system that is capable of converting images into sound signals. It works in the same way as the echolocation system of bats, but instead of chirping, a video camera built into glasses is used. A laptop or smartphone converts the image into sound, which in turn is transmitted to the headset.
According to experiments, after special training, blind people using the device were able to identify faces, buildings, the position of objects in space, and even identify individual letters.
The world is touchable
Unfortunately, all of the above methods of perceiving the world around us are not suitable for all blind people. Some are deprived from birth not only of eyes, but also of ears, or rather hearing. The world of the deaf-blind is limited to memory, if they have lost sight and hearing not since birth, and touch. In other words, for them there is only that which they can touch. Touch and smell are the only threads that connect them with the world around them. But even for them there is hope for a fulfilling life. You can talk to them using so-called dactylology, when each letter corresponds to a specific sign reproduced with the fingers. A huge contribution to the lives of such people was made by the Braille code - a relief-dot tactile way of writing.
Today, raised letters, incomprehensible to a sighted person, are ubiquitous. There are even special computer displays that can convert electronic text into raised text. However, this method is applicable only to those who have lost their sight and hearing after they have learned the language. Those who are blind and deaf from birth have to rely only on touch or vibration.
Reading vibrations
Completely unique in history is the case of American Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing as a result of a fever in infancy. It would seem that she is destined for the life of a closed person who, due to her disability, simply will not be able to learn the language, and therefore will not be able to communicate with people. But her desire to explore the world on an equal basis with the sighted and hearing people was rewarded. When Helen grew up, she was assigned to the Perkins School, which specialized in teaching blind people. There she was assigned a teacher, Anne Sullivan, who was able to find the right approach to Helen. She taught the language to a girl who had never heard human speech and did not even know the approximate sound of letters and the meaning of words. They resorted to the Tadoma method: by touching the lips of the speaking person, Helen felt their vibration, while Sullivan marked the letters on her palm. After mastering the language, Helen had the opportunity to use the Braille code. With his help, she achieved such success that an ordinary person would envy. By the end of her studies, she had fully mastered English, German, Greek and Latin.
At the age of 24, she graduated with honors from the prestigious Radcliffe Institute, becoming the first deaf-blind person to receive a higher education. Subsequently, she devoted her life to politics and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and also wrote 12 books about her life and the world through the eyes of the blind.
You may have wondered at least once whether blind people dream. And if a blind person sees a dream, what is it about? Does such a person become sighted in his sleep? How does his sleep differ from the sleep of a sighted person? In short, there are many questions. Let's try to figure out the answers to some of them.
First of all, blind people actually dream. Sleep and dreaming are associated with a certain stage of rest, accompanied by rapid eye movements. Dreams originate deep in the brain, it is a function of the brain, not the eyes, which is why blind people can see them just as well as people with normal vision. No matter what the cause of blindness is, the situation remains the same. Interestingly, the cause of blindness can in some way affect the content of dreams.
Dream structure
When people think of dreams, they imagine rich visual stories that usually make up their dreams. For most people, dreams are like watching and participating in a movie that unfolds directly in the imagination.
In addition, dreams are accompanied by sounds, touches, tastes, smells, movements and even fears. One way or another, visual experiences play a key role. As a result, many people wonder how blind people can “see” dreams.
What do blind people dream about?
Research into the sensory experiences of blind people has spanned decades. Their goal was to interpret the dreams of the blind for people with normal vision. It is worth thinking about the content of dreams in order to understand how they differ between sighted and blind people.
Most dreams combine visual and kinesthetic experiences associated with movement. Many of the dreams also include sounds. It is rare that people are able to describe other sensory experiences, such as smell, taste or pain. It is believed that the latter appear in only one percent of dreams. Interestingly, women are more likely to experience smells and tastes, while men are more likely to experience sounds and pain.
Blind people describe experiencing tactile sensations, smells and tastes in their dreams. This happens more often than in sighted people. This is most likely due to the fact that their experiences in life are more related to sensory information than visual information. They do not have plot dreams, and there is less aggression in their dreams.
Can the blind become sighted in their sleep?
Despite all these differences in dream content, can the blind become sighted during rest? Some blind people can actually gain vision while sleeping, but this depends on when they lost their vision.
Those who were born blind or lost their sight at a very early age, before the age of four or five, usually do not have a visual component in their dreams. Scientists studied this phenomenon and came to the following conclusions based on the results of many years of research. Detailed studies were conducted that confirmed the absence of visual experiences. On the other hand, those who become blind after the age of six are able to see during dreams. Apparently, there is a certain stage in the development of the human brain that is responsible for visual dreams. If it is already present at the time of interaction with visual information, the data is saved and allows you to dream even when vision is already lost. Those who were blind early or at birth experience dreams differently, receiving information through other channels, for example, sensory, sound, and therefore focusing mostly on it. It is also worth noting separately people who are not able to perceive even light - their sleep may be accompanied by a certain disorder associated with a violation of circadian rhythms, which create the natural “clock” of the body and are responsible for the desire to rest.
Are visual images present in the dreams of blind people?
This question has worried scientists since the beginning of the 19th century. The entertainment value of the dream depends on how many visual images people observe in real life. For example, some older people sometimes dream in black and white, while generations raised on color television tend to dream in color.
In the 1970s, studies were conducted on the dreams of blind people. Here are their results:
1. People born blind never have visual dreams.
2. People who became blind before the age of five rarely have visual dreams.
3. People who lost their sight between the ages of five and seven sometimes have visual dreams.
4. Most people who go blind after the age of seven usually have visual dreams, but the clarity of the images decreases over time.
A number of similar studies, in which participants were awakened during REM sleep, showed similar results.
Not long ago, scientists analyzed 372 dreams seen by 15 blind adults, among whom were both blind from birth and blind in later life. The study again showed that people who are blind from birth or very early childhood do not dream visually, and people who become blind later retain some visual images in their memory, so this affects their dreams.
But one of the study participants does not fit into the overall picture. A 24-year-old man who lost his sight at the age of four reported that he sees objects and images clearly in his dreams. Therefore, it is possible that other people who were blind before the age of five can have visual dreams.
The researchers also found two interesting points:
1. Less than 1% of sighted participants in previous studies reported experiencing taste, smell, and tactile sensations in their dreams, but of the blind participants, all but 3 reported such dreams. One of the congenitally blind participants reported that 48% of his sensations during sleep were auditory, the remaining 52% were gustatory, olfactory and tactile.
2. About 60% of dreams in which vehicles were present were about accidents. For sighted people, this figure is about 31% for men and 28% for women. Scientists suggest that this is due to the genuine fears of the blind, since it is more difficult for them to use transport.
A person receives 90% of information about the world around him through vision. Only the remaining ten are reserved for other senses. But how do blind people perceive the world?
Plunge into darkness
When we close our eyes, we usually see black, sometimes mixed with luminous spots. By this picture we mean “see nothing.” But how do those whose eyes are always “closed” see the world? What is darkness for a blind person and how does he see it?
In general, a blind person’s picture of the world largely depends on how old he was when he lost his sight. If this happened already at a conscious age, then the person thinks in the same images as sighted people. He simply receives information about them using other senses. So, hearing the rustling of leaves, he imagines trees, warm sunny weather will be associated with a blue sky, and so on.
If a person lost his sight in childhood, after the age of five, he can remember colors and understand their meaning. In other words, he will know what the standard seven colors of the rainbow look like and their shades. But visual memory will still be poorly developed. For such people, perception is based largely on hearing and touch.
People who have never seen the sun's vision imagine the world completely differently. Being blind from birth or from infancy, they do not know either the images of the world or its colors. For them, vision, like visual perception, means nothing, since the area of the brain responsible for converting visual information into an image simply does not work for them. When asked what they see before their eyes, they will most likely answer that nothing. Or rather, they simply will not understand the question, since they do not have a developed association of the object with the image. They know the names of colors and objects, but they don't know what they should look like. This once again proves the inability of the blind, who managed to regain their sight, to recognize objects familiar to them by touch after seeing them with their own eyes. Therefore, a blind person will never be able to explain what color real darkness is, because he cannot see it.
Tactile dreams
The situation is similar with dreams. People who have lost their sight at a conscious age, according to their own stories, continue to see dreams “with pictures” for some time. But as time passes, they are replaced by sounds, smells, and tactile sensations.
A person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in his dreams. But he will feel it. Suppose we have a dream in which we are on a sandy beach. A sighted person will most likely see the beach itself, the ocean, sand, and an incoming wave. A blind person will hear the sound of a wave, feel the sand pouring through his fingers, and feel a light breeze. Video blogger Tomi Edison, who has been blind since birth, describes his dreams as follows: “I dream the same thing as you. For example, I can be sitting at a football game and a moment later find myself at my seven-year-old birthday party.” Of course, he doesn't see all this. But he hears sounds that evoke corresponding associations in him.
Echolocation
Sighted people receive 90% of information through their eyes. Vision is the main sense organ for humans. For a blind person, this 90% or, according to some versions, 80% comes from hearing. That's why
Most blind people have very sensitive hearing, which a sighted person can only envy - in their midst there are often excellent musicians, for example, jazz performer Charles Ray or virtuoso pianist Art Tatum. Not only can blind people truly hear and closely follow sounds, but in some cases they can also use echolocation. True, for this you need to learn to recognize sound waves reflected by surrounding objects, determine the position, distance and size of objects located nearby.
Modern researchers no longer classify this method as a fantastic ability. The method of using echolocation for the blind was developed by the American Daniel Kish, who was also blind from early childhood. At 13 months, he had both eyes removed. A blind child’s natural desire to understand the world resulted in his using the method of reflecting sound from different surfaces. It is also used by bats that live in complete darkness, and by dolphins that use echolocation to navigate the ocean.
Thanks to his unique way of “seeing,” Daniel managed to live the life of an ordinary child, in no way inferior to his more fortunate peers. The essence of his method is simple: he constantly clicks his tongue, sending a sound in front of him, which is reflected from different surfaces and gives him an idea of the objects around him. In fact, the same thing happens when blind people tap a stick - the sound of the stick on the road, bounces off surrounding surfaces and conveys some information to the person.
However, Daniel's method has not yet become widespread. In particular, in America, where it originated, according to the American National Federation of Blind People, it was considered “too complex.” But today technology has come to the aid of a good idea. Two years ago, Israeli scientists developed a special Sonar Vision system that is capable of converting images into sound signals. It works in the same way as the echolocation system of bats, but instead of chirping, a video camera built into glasses is used. A laptop or smartphone converts the image into sound, which in turn is transmitted to the headset. According to experiments, after special training, blind people using the device were able to identify faces, buildings, the position of objects in space, and even identify individual letters.
The world is touchable
Unfortunately, all of the above methods of perceiving the world around us are not suitable for all blind people. Some are deprived from birth not only of eyes, but also of ears, or rather hearing. The world of the deaf-blind is limited to memory, if they have lost sight and hearing not since birth, and touch. In other words, for them there is only that which they can touch. Touch and smell are the only threads that connect them with the world around them.
But even for them there is hope for a fulfilling life. You can talk to them using so-called dactylology, when each letter corresponds to a specific sign reproduced with the fingers. A huge contribution to the lives of such people was made by the Braille code - a relief-dot tactile way of writing. Today, raised letters, incomprehensible to a sighted person, are ubiquitous. There are even special computer displays that can convert electronic text into raised text. However, this method is applicable only to those who have lost their sight and hearing after they have learned the language. Those who are blind and deaf from birth have to rely only on touch or vibration!
Reading vibrations
Completely unique in history is the case of American Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing as a result of a fever in infancy. It would seem that she is destined for the life of a closed person who, due to her disability, simply will not be able to learn the language, and therefore will not be able to communicate with people. But her desire to explore the world on an equal basis with the sighted and hearing people was rewarded. When Helen grew up, she was assigned to the Perkins School, which specialized in teaching blind people. There she was assigned a teacher, Anne Sullivan, who was able to find the right approach to Helen. She taught the language to a girl who had never heard human speech and did not even know the approximate sound of letters and the meaning of words. They resorted to the Tadoma method: by touching the lips of the speaking person, Helen felt their vibration, while Sullivan marked the letters on her palm.
After mastering the language, Helen had the opportunity to use the Braille code. With his help, she achieved such success that an ordinary person would envy. By the end of her studies, she had fully mastered English, German, Greek and Latin. At the age of 24, she graduated with honors from the prestigious Radcliffe Institute, becoming the first deaf-blind person to receive a higher education. Subsequently, she devoted her life to politics and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and also wrote 12 books about her life and the world through the eyes of the blind.
