Do Blind People Dream?
The question of whether or not blind people dream is one that has crossed many minds before, but what is the actual answer?
By Anne Sun
This question has crossed our minds before, it’s just that we’ve never bothered to actually find the answer to it. If you want the short answer, unexpectedly, it’s a yes. If you want to understand how they dream despite not having visual references from everyday life, then continue reading.
What makes blind people unable to see?
Blind people cannot see, but it does not prevent their brains from producing imaginal representations.
Human vision consists of three steps:
- Transformation of light waves to electrical impulses by cells when light hits the retina (tissue in the back of the eye)
- These impulses then travel through the optic nerve to your brain
- Your brain decodes and assembles these impulses into visual images
If a body part necessary for one of these three steps is severely damaged, you will be visually impaired. Most blind people have impairments related to the first two steps. This means that they are unable to send visual information to their brain and therefore can’t visually experience the outside world.
What does that mean for their dreams?
Dreams are drawn from our memory. Blind people will dream based on the senses related to certain objects. Imaginal representations of objects and people will be formed in their dreams.
It turns out that blind people do dream, but they dream less and not as vividly as we do. People who lose their sight after the age of 5 are still able to “see” in their dreams based on their previous memories. However, the longer you are blind for the less you tend to dream visually. On the other hand, people who became blind before the age of 5 can’t “see” in their dreams but instead are more reliant on the other four senses: touch, taste, smell, and sound.
Despite people who have been blind from birth being unable to “see” in their dreams, they are able to form imaginal representations. These imaginal representations do have size, position and movement that connect to what they believe an object or person to be like. An example would be if they were to dream of water it would correlate to what they sense water to be like. Since water is flowy, in their dreams they may imagine water as a wavy blob.
At the end of the day…
While blind people may not be able to experience the world visually, it doesn’t hinder their ability to dream. Most people are only visually impaired because they are unable to transform light waves into impulses. In the end, they are still able have dreams filled with sensations and imaginal representations of the world.