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I’ve previously mentioned our semi-thriving Facebook Group. On the group’s Wall, a reader named Blake wrote this question:
“Hey all you knowledge junkies, I just had a question that I thought might receive some informed answers here. Do congenitally blind persons dream? And if so, what do those dreams consist of? I know the easiest means to find out would be to ask a blind person, but my lack of blind acquaintances inhibits that solution. THANKS.”
I found a 1999 study titled “The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous Findings,” attributed to Craig Hurovitz, Sarah Dunn, G. William Domhoff and Harry Fiss. Here’s an excerpt from the abstract:
“Drawing on a sample of 372 dreams from 15 blind adults, this paper…revealed that those blind since birth or very early childhood had (1) no visual imagery and (2) a very high percentage of gustatory, olfactory, and tactual sensory references.”
There are probably other studies with differing abstracts. So let’s open this up to the blind community. If we have any blind folks in the audience, or if you have a blind person in your house, let us know whether these findings ring true. We’ll also accept insight from the simply smart and sighted community.
Comments (14)
Comment
Ok, completely off topic but on my way to work this morning I heard a story on NPR which said that magazine shipping rates will be going up (”considerable in some cases”….whatever that means) and also that smaller magazines might have to reduce the pages the feature etc etc. Does this affect Mental Floss? I am a subscriber and a little concerned.
Sorry and I can’t offer any insight into the dream issue.
posted by Humaira on 7-9-2007 at 7:09 am
I used to work as a camp counselor for a summer camp for the deaf and/or blind. Congenitally blind people (kids and counselors) do in fact dream, and have nightmares! From what I have gathered, by asking them, blind people’s dreams consist of a mix of all their remaining senses. Smells, emotions, and memories of different situations they have been in, interweave to produce dreams that are just as vivid as any seeing person could have. It is important to note, that blindness is not the same for each individual. Many ‘blind’ individuals do see some light, and can detect changes in the level/color of light they do see. In these individuals , those changes in light levels do appear in their dreams. Deaf people experience the same effect in their dreams. Their level of perception is the same in the real world as it is in their dream world.
posted by Caesar on 7-9-2007 at 8:19 am
The question seems unanswerable to me. If some primitive part of the brain were to fire images to the consciousness of a person that had been blind since birth, how would that person ever process the information as an image? I would expect to be disorienting and incoherent to them.
Very much like what I experience every time I look at a Pollock painting. (tongue-in-cheek)
posted by n2y2 on 7-9-2007 at 9:37 am
It seems like maybe the answer to this might depend on what a “dream” is. Does the definition of a dream include images? Or are dreams something else?
posted by Katie on 7-9-2007 at 1:53 pm
I would also think that the answer would be different for those that are blind from birth than those blinded by disease or accident later in life. I haven’t heard of visual dreams and memories being erased by blindness later in life.
posted by Steve on 7-9-2007 at 6:39 pm
This makes me think of two questions which have been bugging me -
Do people who have been deaf from birth think in sign language?
How many years does it take for a new speaker of english (ie: english being their second language) to start thinking in english?
posted by Sarah on 7-10-2007 at 2:02 am
Seriously, I bet your “blind community” is off the hook with all those braille screens…
posted by Jerse on 7-10-2007 at 6:53 am
Jerse — I can’t speak to how many blind readers we have. You’re probably right; it’s probably zero. But I was shocked to learn how many blind people are actively using the internet through screen readers and other similar technologies.
Here’s an explanation of how they do it:
webbie.org.uk/webbie.htm
posted by Jason on 7-10-2007 at 9:50 am
Most people who speak English (or any other language) as a 2nd language are unlikely to think in English most of the time (and very many second language learners will never think directly in the second language at all), unless they learnt the language very young (before puberty) and / or have lost their first language through migration or other circumstances. An exception might be if there is a particular area of life where they have only ever used English - say maybe a scientist who did all their training in English would be likely to think about scientific problems in English.
Regarding sign language, the main issue is not really whether the person has been deaf since birth, but whether or not sign language was their first language. I’ve known deaf people who have had to mentally translate things written in the main language of the community in question into sign language, so yes, I’d say they were thinking in sign language.
posted by Tamara on 7-12-2007 at 5:06 am
I am a teacher of the blind and visually impaired, and yes, my students tell me that they DO dream. I taught elementary school last year, and one little girl told me that she would have nightmares about the guy who read “The Green Ribbon” (the story about the lady whose head falls off when you take off the ribbon) on our audiotape.
From what I gather from my students, they dream of sounds, feelings, smells, etc.
And, as mentioned above, there is AMAZING technology for folks who are blind or VI. I am dying to get these “pens” where you literally move the pen over text and it reads it to you. There are also computer programs to help folks with VI/blindness use a computer (some will read the screen to you). Of course, there is still the good ol’ Perkins Brailler!
posted by Patti on 7-12-2007 at 8:41 am
I would like to know how Blind People
perceive sounds in a dream and how is this intepreted by the person.
In other words what formation is created by that sounds.
Can any tell me a dream that they had
and how this was intepreted.
I want to understand how you intepret
dreams.
posted by Mark Morgan on 8-3-2007 at 10:37 am
Tamara,
I am bilingual, and I dream in 2 languages regularly. I did not become fully bilingual until I was 14 (past puberty), and that is definitely not a determinate in how bilingual a person can be, but rather whether or not a person will have an accent. My father, who did not become bilingual until he was around 30, dreams in both languages, and recently retired from his position as the vice president of an international corporation. He speaks English with an accent, however, he does speak English fluently, and with little to no grammatical mistakes. He does not spend his entire day translating things in his head, he thinks in English or in French as the case may be.
I think in 2 languages, it kind of works like a light switch, I think in French, or I think in English. I do occasionally get stuck in the middle, but most bilinguals that I have spoken to have similar experiences. The brain is perfectly capable of thinking in more than one language.
I realize that you did not mean to put down second language learners, but your statements were not only wrong, but somewhat derogatory towards learners of other languages. Please be careful what you say in this area, it is a sensitive topic.
posted by greenstrawberries on 8-29-2007 at 1:36 am
To add to what greenstrawberries said: we’ve had five foreign exchange students live with us over the years, and played host to a number of others. Two of my girls, in particular, were quite excited when they had their first dreams in English. Bear in mind, each of them was polylingual; one spoke three languages fluently, then other spoke four and was learning a fifth. Both were about 16 or 17 at the time. Now that they’re in their mid-20s, I’d bet their dreams are really fantastic!
posted by N'Awlins Kat on 9-18-2007 at 3:58 pm
It was our topic in my class that triggered me to research about what do blind people dream about and fortunately I came across to this site. For me my first reaction to this question as our college professor asked to us is that blind people dream only about their auditory sensation. But now it was clear to me that blind people dream too not only about their auditory sensation but their dreams also include their other functionig senses. But there was a question that came into my mind. Do blind people imagine how someone or something looks like and if they do, do their imagination affect their dreams too? I’m just curious…
posted by Jhester Eusebio on 1-10-2008 at 6:15 am