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What do they see? What do they Dream? Can they understand colors? I have just a bunch of questions I'd like to ask someone who's blind becasue I'm nosey, but do any of you know from asking a blind person?

vincent

i remember discussing something similar with a psychology lecturer i know who was doing her PhD thesis on biological psychology of the blind and how their brains react with emotions although hers was investigating if people blind from birth respond to humour, physically the same way as sighted people...namely by smiling...because it was thought that smiling is a learned response by seeing others smile...where as some thought that you automatically smile when you find something amusing...i believe her findings supported the learned response theory

as for perception of colour in dreams....that is very interesting...although i have no idea....hahaha...sorry

I studied the dream bit for psychology, but have completely forgotten pretty much all of it, sorry. I'll have a look in my old text books later and see if I can find anything.

EDIT: Just had a quick flick through, apparently people who are born blind have dreams that are purely auditory.

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine


What do they see? They don't (black).

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine
What do they Dream? What everyone else dreams, but without light.

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine
Can they understand colors? No, can christians understand rationality?

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine
I have just a bunch of questions I'd like to ask someone who's blind becasue I'm nosey, but do any of you know from asking a blind person?

vincent

No, It's just what I assume.

Originally posted by lord xyz
They don't (black).

How do you know they see black? It could be white they see...or blue or pink. Being blind is not like having your eyelids closed- the eyes don't work, thus the little part of your brain which translates the data usually received from the eye will just give out the base signal...could be any colour.

Originally posted by lord xyz
What everyone else dreams, but without light.
Or any vision what so ever.

Originally posted by lord xyz
No, can christians understand rationality?
Your not funny...

Originally posted by lord xyz
No, It's just what I assume.
Indeed...

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine


What do they see? What do they Dream? Can they understand colors? I have just a bunch of questions I'd like to ask someone who's blind becasue I'm nosey, but do any of you know from asking a blind person?

vincent


Ask a blind person.

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
How do you know they see black? It could be white they see...or blue or pink. Being blind is not like having your eyelids closed- the eyes don't work, thus the little part of your brain which translates the data usually received from the eye will just give out the base signal...could be any colour. I don't really see black when I shut my eyes, sometimes I see yellow or red. See, black is the abscence of colour and light, which is what blind people see, the abscence of colour and light.

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Or any vision what so ever. Yeah, what's the difference?


Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Your not funny... My not funny...what?


Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
Indeed... Lol therefore I'm completely wrong because all guesses are wrong and created equally with someone guessing shit tastes like rainbows.

I wonder if there any blind people on here who can answer these questions.

Well doesn´t look like it.

I was wondering if someone who is born blind and deaf can get on in life after all that person won´t have much input to work with.

I don't trust blind people.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
I wonder if there any blind people on here who can answer these questions.

Not really a ton of blind people on the Internet.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
Ask a blind person. Agreed. Read the Helen Keller biography.

People that have certain disabilities have extra perceptive experiences that we don't have. Maybe they could be more enhanced than ours. I cannot believe it since I have not studies this, so I cannot really comment on the "color" thing. To me how can one see color if they never saw it? Maybe there is something in their brains that have these functions. They must have something though. Maybe they are even greater than what we percieve.

Originally posted by Vinny Valentine


What do they see? What do they Dream? Can they understand colors? I have just a bunch of questions I'd like to ask someone who's blind becasue I'm nosey, but do any of you know from asking a blind person?

vincent


You'll have a perfectly easy time getting those questions answered here with all of the blind people we have on KMC.

crylaugh

Generally speaking, dream impressions mirror waking impressions. In the case of a blind-since-birth person, how ever it is they experience waking life, dreams will reflect that.

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?


...why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Not really a ton of blind people on the Internet.

Blind people do surf the internet you know.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Blind people do surf the internet you know.

I do. In fact I know a blind person who uses the net. I'd still put good money on there being relatively few blind people on the internet, especially in relation to the number of sighted people.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I do. In fact I know a blind person who uses the net. I'd still put good money on there being relatively few blind people on the internet, especially in relation to the number of sighted people.

Well of course. Especially since there are disproportionaly small number of people that are blind in relations to those who see.

Blind people may not post on websites like this, but I am sure a lot of them read things on the interent as a whole.

It is an interesting question. I don't actually know anyone that's blind, but if I had to take a blind guess (i wish that pun hadn't been intended) I'd say it varies from the kind of blindness the person suffers from. Some might have no concept of seeing at all, other might indeed see a sort of black or flickering, I do not know. As for dreams, when I think about how I perceive dreams, it seems to me that I don't actually see dreams as such, but just interpret them in a way I am accustomed to (seeing), therefore I would assume that blind people interpret their dreams in the same way they perceive the world around you, which I can't quite imagine.

Again, that's just a layman's guess, I have no information whatsoever.

I'm guessing blind peoples dreams are mega sensual

that could be true. Hmm

like being in the smoke screen or cloud. they see nothing but smoke

Originally posted by lord xyz
They don't (black).

That seems to illustrate a severe lack of imagination and experience in a non-sighted world. Just because you and I can't absolutely define what a blind person thinks of the colour red doesn't mean there's no difference between red and green for a blind person.

seeing as every individual has different dreams anyway, blind people probably also experience different things when dreaming.

I wondered if any blind person has ever had OBE (outer body experience), Ive had these lots of times and everything is white and hazzy.

I took this from a treatse (whatever that is) on Astral Projection I found on the net...

Blind people cannot visualize AT ALL, if they have been blind since birth, but they do have a very keen sense of bodily awareness. The majority of sighted people also have great trouble with visualization of any kind, and all projection techniques depend heavily on visualization. This being the case, I developed a projection technique that does NOT depend on visualization to exert pressure on the astral body to separate. It turned out to be so much easier, and more successful, than the other visualization based techniques, that I discarded them in favour of this simple tactile method.

Note: Blind people are not blind in astral form. The astral body does not have any organs as such, it is a point of consciousness only. The astral body you are aware of while projecting is provided courtesy of the subconscious minds creative ability.



link here : http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/rbruce3.html

astral projection? really? for serious?

Visual dreams in the congenitally blind?
Lopes da Silva FH
Trends in Cognitive Science 7, 2003.

An EEG study of sleep in congenitally blind persons revealed a significant correlation between the visual activity reported during dreaming and the decrease of alpha strength recorded from the central and occipital regions of the scalp. This provides the first objective evidence that subjects who have never had visual experiences can have dreams with virtual images that are probably mediated by the activation of the cortical areas responsible for visual representations.

Visual dream content, graphical representation and EEG alpha activity in congenitally blind subjects
Bértolo H, Paiva T, Pessoa L, Mestre T, Marques R, Santos R
Brain Research: Cognitive Brain Research 15, 2003

It is currently claimed that congenitally blind do not have visual imagery and are therefore unable to present visual contents in their dreams. The aim of our study was to quantitatively evaluate the existence of visual imagery in born-blind dreams and to correlate it with objective measures, such as sleep EEG frequency components, namely with alpha attenuation (regarded as an indicator of visual activity), and graphical analysis of dream pictorial representations. The investigation was carried out via simultaneous recordings of dream reports and polysomnography, during nocturnal sleep at volunteers' homes; scheduled regular awakenings during the night provided the data for dream and EEG analysis. In the morning, subjects were asked to make a drawing of their dream images. Congenitally blind (n=10) were comparable to normal sighted subjects (n=9): the two groups presented equivalent visual activity indices, and no differences in the analysis of graphical representation of dreaming imagery. However, blind subjects presented a lower rate of dream recall than sighted (27% versus 42%). Both groups had significant negative correlation between Visual Activity Index (VAI) and alpha power in the central and occipital O2 derivations (blind: C4: r=-0.615, P<0.005; O2: r=-0.608, P<0.006; sighted: C4: r=-0.633, P<0.01; O2: r=-0.506, P<0.05). This correlation was weaker for the blind in O1 (r=-0.573, P<0.05) and non-existent for the sighted. Blind individuals have significantly lower alpha activity in the central derivation. In conclusion, the congenitally blind have visual content in their dreams and are able to draw it and, as expected, their VAI is negatively correlated with EEG alpha power.

------------------

Some notes: The conclusion that occipital activation in blind subjects indicates sight is not necessarily true. Blind individuals show activation in visual areas when reading braille, and people kept blindfolded for days show a similar effect. Our brains are highly plastic, meaning they adapt based on what is coming in, and it is possible that, instead of being a "visual cortex", that area is designed for "visual type" experiences, that can be adapted for different situations.

However, the subjects themselves report visual activity during dreams

They can understand colour as well as you can understand heat or X rays.

That was an interesting article. But I´m not sure you can measure all activity with electrodes and the like, things may be happening in the brain or energetic self which cannot be measured.

I know Astral projection or OBE and that sort of thing may sound daft,
unless you´ve experienced it. I have, so I thought it would be an interesting angle on this discussion.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
That was an interesting article. But I´m not sure you can measure all activity with electrodes and the like, things may be happening in the brain or energetic self which cannot be measured.


not, not even close, and EEGs are highly sensitive to interference, be it from equipment or from just other brain activity.

However, in this, it was the similarity of activation in the visual cortex between blind and sighted individuals. One would expect, if a brain sees nothing, there would be no activation in that area.

Like I said, because of plasticity, it might be that the visual cortex play a roll in something "vision like", such as spatial arrangement of objects, distances, etc, for blind people. However, the blind people did describe visual phenomena in their dreams.

Interesting theories.