Greetings,
I was just wondering if blind people can see when they dream. Can they see what they think the objects would look like if they were able to see? Or is it an audio sensory experience involving the remaining senses?

Probably just auditory and tactile sensations. Maybe smells. The senses they are used to. May depend on why they are blind, too. If it's a permanent haze over the cornea, like the musician Tom Sullivan, there may still be the ability for the optic nerve to produce signals that would relay color and light. If the retina is damaged, probably not...unless the occipital lobe of the brain can still create a "seeing sensation" without a signal from the retina, then there still may be color and light. Like when you close your eyes really hard for a long time and you see all the funky wavy colors and stars and stuff. That's not dependent on any visual stimulus from the eye itself, from my understanding. So, their dreams may look like the gloopy colored wall effect used in video footage from Jefferson Airplane concerts. With a voice over.

I've often wondered how deaf people think without the ability of language. Do they think in sign language? When they read, do they translate in their heads the way it would be signed the way hearing people would translate the text into spoken words?

Greetings,
I was just wondering if blind people can see when they dream. Can they see what they think the objects would look like if they were able to see? Or is it an audio sensory experience involving the remaining senses?

I considered answering your question myself, but decided that you might prefer an answer straight from the source. So I passed your question on to my friend, Laurie, who has been blind since she was fairly young. Here's what she had to say:

" Yes, blind people do dream. What they see in their dreams depends on how much they could ever see. If someone has been totally blind since birth, they only have auditory dreams. If someone such as I, has had a measure of sight, then that person dreams with that measure of sight. I still dream as though I can see, colors included. For people I've met since, their faces are just blurs or how I imagine they look. To me, someone like my mother looks forever 30. "

As stated above, everyone dreams. In general, people's dream experience is similar to their waking experience. That is, while most sighted people's dreams are primarily visual, blind people dream more an auditory, tactile, and other sense modalities.People who lose their sight very early (before age five) apparently experience no visual imagery in their dreams. Visual imagery is variable for those who lose their sight between ages five and seven. People who lose their sight after age seven almost always have some level of visual imagery present in their dreams.

Raven:
Greetings,
I was just wondering if blind people can see when they dream. Can they see what they think the objects would look like if they were able to see? Or is it an audio sensory experience involving the remaining senses?
Yes! Finally something to do.

People who've had damage to their visaul pathways- either from glaucoma, retinal neuropathy or some other macular degeneratin- ok, anyone who's lost their vision but once had it undergoes this weird syndrome known as Charles Bonnett (after the prick who found it.)

Here's what happpens: for some reason these people begin having these incredibly vivid hallucionations, ones so powerful only us 'normal' people would need artifical stimulants for them- psyclocibin, shrooms, mescal. They're described as the most powerfully delicious images that literally drip with color and I'll admit I'm jealous.

Remember James Thurber? Wrote "The Catbird Seat" and all those odd cartoons? All his imagination, like Carrolls', is the product of handicap- in this case blindess.

Once he "looked" down to were glass fell on the floor and he writes:

"I saw a cuban flag flying over a national bank, I saw a gay old lady with a gray parasol walk right through the side of a truck, I saw a cat roll across a street in a small stripped barrel..I saw bridges rize lazily into the air like balloons."

He dreams melting purple blobs and halos made of rubber and diamonds. Isn't it fantasitc? I'd kill for shit like this.

Now, as for those that have always been blind, in "seeing" objects many describe a feeling of seeing it without seeing - Odd, I know.
I could never undertand what was meant by it until I saw a huge white space full of black moving dots with only ONE insect that looked like a black dot among them. In the hundred and hundreds of dots my eye was immediately drawn to that one that looked ALIVE even though it was moving like the other dots. There's a feeling or attraction to life- biophilia- that I can't quite explain even though I'm seeing it.

Pause.

Have I bored you?


***EDIT

James Thurber, not Charles Thurber

Have I bored you?
No, not at all! That was a very interesting reply to an interesting topic.

I have wondered the same about deaf people. I work with a deaf girl and have always felt personal questions like that would cross some kind of line.

People who've had damage to their visaul pathways- either from glaucoma, retinal neuropathy or some other macular degeneratin- ok, anyone who's lost their vision but once had it undergoes this weird syndrome known as Charles Bonnett (after the prick who found it.)

Remember Charles Thurber? Wrote "The Catbird Seat" and all those odd cartoons?

He dreams melting purple blobs and halos made of rubber and diamonds. Isn't it fantasitc? I'd kill for shit like this.

Now, as for those that have always been blind, in "seeing" objects many describe a feeling of seeing it without seeing.

Have I bored you?

Interesting. Thanks for coming up with some information, but can you provide some hint as to your source for the vividness of dreams in the blind? Better, can you point out where it is linked in some way to Bonnett's Syndrome? Not to discount the assertion, but some substantiation would be nice, especially in light of a few careless mistakes in the rest of your text.

For example, it was James Thurber who wrote The Catbird Seat. I figure you probably were still thinking of Charles Bonnett when you typed that. No harm, no foul.

But the accounts I've read of Bonnett's syndrome relate that the vivid images are generally experienced when the eyes are open and normal blinking occurs. Here is a link to a small study that supports this:

http://www.geocities.com/franzbardon/CharlesBonnetSyndrome_e.html

This doesn't contradict vivid dreams, but neither does it lend support, so if you wanted to elaborate a bit, I'd be much obliged.

As for "anyone who's lost their vision but once had it", thats a bit too general. You probably mean to include only those people who have lost their vision by means other than damage to the visual cortex. Such damage could result in the inability to assemble images stored in memory.

For instance, it has been shown that damage to a certain area of the brain (v4 perhaps? Sorry I can't recall any better) not only results in the loss of color perception, but also results in the loss of colors in memories and dreams. It is the loss of the ability to experience color. By extension, more widespread damage... well, you get the idea.

And I wasn't aware that "anyone" who lost their sight would automatically experience the visions associated with CBS. Is that really true? 100%?

wow going blind some age after birth sounds like
that brain dmg thing that unable to produce any long term memory.
LIke in the movie 50 first dates.

here's another one...

lets take a bedouin (and to negate the effect of TV media etc lets put him 2000 years ago) he has never seen snow, he propbably doesnt even know that snow exsists.
can he dream of snow??

Disco:
Interesting. Thanks for coming up with some information, but can you provide some hint as to your source for the vividness of dreams in the blind? Better, can you point out where it is linked in some way to Bonnett's Syndrome? Not to discount the assertion, but some substantiation would be nice, especially in light of a few careless mistakes in the rest of your text.

Certainly.

I cannot point you to the internet- rarely do I get primary information there since its biased. I read it in books and supplement it with professional opinions- meaning that I hunt teachers and doctors down like mice and force them to answer my questions. Its mostly then that I use the internet, which is why half the time I can't link you anywhere.

I present to you V.S. Ramachandran, a witty little doctor who's written a wonderful book called "Phantoms in the Brain" where you can read about how tentative your grasp on who and what you are actually is.
Scientifically speaking anyway.
I also present "The Naked Neuron", by R. Josheph- not as interesting since you'd like to light the man on fire for being so tedious and long winded...but its interesting either way.

Ramachandran has linked the strange phenomena of Thurber's explosive imagination with what's in front of his face- the fact that Thurber began having all those wonderful images after he lost his vision.

And I've asked a doctor about this syndrom and it was like pulling teeth out. He'd never heard of it.


As for "anyone who's lost their vision but once had it", thats a bit too general. You probably mean to include only those people who have lost their vision by means other than damage to the visual cortex. Such damage could result in the inability to assemble images stored in memory.

Probably.

For instance, it has been shown that damage to a certain area of the brain (v4 perhaps? Sorry I can't recall any better) not only results in the loss of color perception, but also results in the loss of colors in memories and dreams. It is the loss of the ability to experience color. By extension, more widespread damage... well, you get the idea
Exactly- which is why the brain fascinates me.

That hundreds and hundreds of parts and hundreds and hundreds of pathways are responsible for so many things- wholly or partially- and yet works almost magically as one harmonious whole.

Example: doctor lops off your genitals and assigns you a sex- the environment is tweaked to reinforce the sex that was given you......but your brain says otherwise.

You feel your individuality is an immutable entity that transcends everything......but a scratch on the hippocampus would freeze 'you' in time, a glitch on the parietal lobes would have 'you' denying you're even 'you', or faulty temporal lobes would have you either denying your 'self' or believing there's alot more 'self' than there really is.

So just becuase the visual pathway is damaged does not gurantee you this amazing result- but it seems the more and more I read on this that the brain hates 'vaccums' just as much as nature does and seeks to fill in with guesstimates or subsitutes.

And so, hallucinations for those that can no longer see reality. Its as if the brain gets bored.

And I wasn't aware that "anyone" who lost their sight would automatically experience the visions associated with CBS. Is that really true? 100%?
No, its not.

Seems I got a little caught up in finally talking about what I love to talk about. Not everyone experiences Bonnett syndrome much like everyone that loses a limb does not develop phantom limb syndrome.
I can sit here for years wishing myself to be pregnant but never show the false swelling of pseduocyesis. All of this has been documented.

Its all medical curiousities- alot more fascinating than talking about the flu or small pox wouldn't you say?

Silverback:
No, not at all! That was a very interesting reply to an interesting topic.

I have wondered the same about deaf people. I work with a deaf girl and have always felt personal questions like that would cross some kind of line.

GOOD then...I loathe being thought boring. I can deal with clumsy little schoolgirl, but boring is cutthroat.

Deaf people- I often wondered if I stuck my hand inside and jumbled the small bones around in there would they hear anything if the aucustic centers in the brain were not damaged. Turns out they don't and that is the premise for hearing aids- but I'm sure you knew this already.

What I find intriguing now is whether those that have always been deaf have a mental voice the way you or I do- as in ASL, most mouth 'words' while they gesture and I wonder if there's a voice behind them in their brain speaking the words to them..........even though they've never heard what the human voice sounds like much less what it should sound like when forumulating vocaburary.

(not reading the other posts) What i have been told that blind people hear in thier dreams.

Certified:
(not reading the other posts)....
Then what, pray tell, is the point of even being here?


What i have been told that blind people hear in thier dreams.
.......?

Blind people.....hearing in their dreams...........is intriguing how?

*edit*

Intriguing, not intrugying.

You know... I never hear anything in my dreams.

Do you guys?

You don't as much hear anything- as much as I don't hear myself voicing these words as I type them. Its a mental voice that trills beneath all one's thinking.

DAMNINT PEOPLE.

This was an intereting thread and now look at it- lost like a quarter in some fucking love sofa. Come now! We need more threads like this!

I've often wondered how deaf people think without the ability of language. Do they think in sign language? When they read, do they translate in their heads the way it would be signed the way hearing people would translate the text into spoken words?

The same way we used to think before we had language :rolleyes:
Also the same way animals think now!

John Connellan,
Originally Posted by chunkylover58
I've often wondered how deaf people think without the ability of language. Do they think in sign language? When they read, do they translate in their heads the way it would be signed the way hearing people would translate the text into spoken words?

The same way we used to think before we had language
Also the same way animals think now!

I'm not sure about that. The relationship between thought and language has been THE question for a loooong time. Esp. Cognitive Science suggests that one cannot be without the other -- language isn't possible without thought and thought isn't possible without language. Sounds obvious, but the thing with language is that it is more than just the ability to speak a *certain* language, like English or Spanish for example. The Chomskyan theory suggests that there is something like "general language", and the languages as we know them (English, German, Chinese ...) are just *dialects* of this general language (which, in itself, is inutterable).
It is more like that language is a certain *ability* of the (human) brain, and it can be represented in several ways: speaking (a certain language), writing, sign language(s).

This ability of the human brain is much like math: the equation 3 +4 = 7 has the same meaning regardless of the language you read it in, but a Chinese reads it differently from a German. There is NO ABSOLUTE way to read 3 + 4 = 7 -- you can only write it in an absolute way (=understandable by everyone who knows math, regardless of the language they speak).
So 3 +4 = 7 would be general language, English is 'three plus four equals seven', German 'drei und vier gleicht sieben'.

Deaf people have the ability of language; they just don't have the ability of spoken language.

It must be kept in mind that language is something that can evolve (only?) in a *society*. That is, a large enough number of individuals must live and work together, and they'll develop a language; be this sign language or spoken language.

I don't think we were able to think before we had language. That is: we most likely were *not aware* that we thought before we had language. Self-awareness comes with language, ie. a certain kind of thinking ability.
Because, after all, when talking about the human brain: The probably most amazing and least explained thing about the brain is: Why do we feel like we? Why do we have the feeling that we think, that we perceive things??


To return to the blind: Do you know the story of Michael May from California? He became blind when he was 3 due to an accident, and some years back one of his was operated and became the sight of his right eye (back). There aren't many such cases; so individual are very interesting to read -- about how he had to learn that a peach looks different from a cocacola dose etc. I only have a German article about him if anyone can find one in English, that'd be splendid. :)

Interesting Rosa. Are u suggesting that language may be a key component in our unlocking the secrets of human consciousness???

Interesting Rosa. Are u suggesting that language may be a key component in our unlocking the secrets of human consciousness???

YES, that is, as far as *understanding* the evolution of human consciousness goes. Well, I don't think we'll ever "unlock" those secrets.