did blind people see dreams?

Answer 1

Actually, yes, even though I've seen some interesting explanations. In a recent study in Romania (I actually participated as a research assistant) an visual impairement, 2 cathegories were studied: those who were completely blind and those who suffered from partial visual impairement. The most shoking thing was the statement of a 8 year old, completely blind, who said that he dreamed about a red fox, and that he felt threatened about it - it was a nightmare. And he even tried to explain it's shape. We couldn't determine how was this posible, especially when his teacher explaind that she never described such an animal in her class, and neither his parents, let alone his colleagues. A possibile explanation may reside in ethology: even from the beggining, man had to defend their youngs from many dangers: the primary elements that appear nowadays in our nightmares are the fangs, horns and some colours that mean danger: red and black. It appears that the case of the visual impaired is no different. It is very complicated to explain how this happens, but it happens, and this is a fact. I've given you an example of an exceptional case, but still, this is not a general rule. Visual impairement usually reduces dreams to sound, smell and touch. This research will be finished in february 2007 and i'll try to give you a more complex answear then.

Answer 2

Good question!

I would think that if they weren't born blind they would still dream in pictures as we do, since they have their memories to draw from. If they were born blind however, they wouldn't be able to dream visually, only with their other senses. I guess they would just hear dialogue, smell or feel things as they do in life...Apparently when one sense is absent, the others are more intense to compensate so they'd probably be able to hear, smell, taste & touch more in their dreams than the rest of us can.

Really interesting. I'd never thought of it before...

(One person mentions it's been asked before but how can you possibly know every question that's ever been asked? I wasn't aware that there is a "best of 2006"...)

Answer 3

Most blind people report that they do dream, its just not the same way we do. If they are born with sight and lose it, those people can dream about sights, and often do. But those who are born blind often dream about sounds and inner feelings and thoughts.

Answer 4

Blind people do not see dreams because although visions form within our unconscious mind. The blind are unable to see them because everything is black in their sight.

Answer 5

Hi......I think it is possible. I believe that past lives are possible (this is taught in Buddhism). So.......in the dreaming state, one could access what you might call the Store Consciousness (similar to Jung's Collective Unconscious), So, the visual images are seen in the mind of the blind person (even if he/she is blind from birth).

To me, this is possible evidence of past lives.

(Melania: do you have an email contact or something? I am excited to hear about your experiment report)

Answer 6

The ones do who were not born blind, and remember what things used to look like.

Answer 7

you store images in your memory and that is used while you dream...so i dont think blind people dream images...do you have dreams of the radio waves in the atmosphere?or have dreams where everything is seen in infrared?...wont happen.

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melanias hypothesis is very interesting though

Answer 8

This has been asked. And is in fact in the 'best questions and answers of 2006' section.

I thought when you asked questions this site showed you similar one's to check you weren't repeating another? Did it not when you posted exactly the same question?

Answer 9

I have no ideal but that is a great question, gives me something to think about!

Answer 10

depends what you mean by "see"...but they did HAVE dreams