Do people who are born blind have normal dreams?
489633
While there may be exceptions, in general the dreams of the congenitally blind contain no visual elements and consist predominantly of sound plus smell, touch and the sense of movement.\n\nPlotwise they tend to to be reality-based--e.g., a reprise of the events of the day--with less of the fantasy you find in the dreams of sighted people. There's also more conversation.\n\nPersons who become blind after birth often see in their dreams, although it depends on (a) how old they were when they became blind and (b) how long it's been since. If you're blinded before the age of six or seven you generally see little or nothing in your dreams.\n\nDreams of people who become blind when older are often indistinguishable from those of the sighted, but as time goes on many "see" less and less.\n\nTo some extent, I gather, the lack of visual elements in the dreams of the blind can be counteracted by force of imagination. Helen Keller, who became blind at the age of 19 months, claimed to have "visions of ineffable beauty." These ran to things like pearls.\n\nTo my mind this betrays a certain want of ambition. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, right? So I'd want to see what I could work up along the lines of Jacqueline Bisset. But at least we know there's hope.
387790
" 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. "
228409
They don't see, they remember things that the've touched. It's a different form of sensory compared to people who can see. Blind peple depend on touch, so when they dream, they dream things that they can feel and touch. =>
43632
sure they dream , but in different way. i think he can not see the dream like us , maybe he just feel it or sense it...
1072338
Yes they can.\nThey dream of sounds and feelings and smells they grew up with, but no one's for sure if they can see anything. Some experts just believe that all they see is nothing since they don't know what things look like.\n\nMy mom works with sleep research and she has told me that blind people during sleep have the same brain stimuli that regular people have when they are dreaming.
626942
intersting question; i think a blind person will affect the way they see in their dream.  \n\nFor example, i always dream and i can control what i do.  But if i have a pair of blind eyes, as i said before i can control what i do, i am sure i will not be able to see in colour during a dream.
114345
For one you dont need to be able to hear to think, and thats what you essentially do when your talking inside your head.  Secondly your thoughts while you dream are not connected to your sense of sight.  From what I have heard your brain is wired to allow people to see what they dream, the one thing different would be that what those people see in their dreams wouldnt be influenced by what they see in the outside world
316343
I think that blind people would have their own ideas of what things 'look like' based on the things that are explained to them.  but while you cant explain color necessarily to a blind person, other things you can, and sound helps too. some blind people have very blurred vision and are still able to make shapes out. i believe that based on what they imagine things to be, thats what they dream. maybe just mostly shapes. just as we dont know what (a) god looks like, we all imagine and dream up something we belive him/her/it to look like, even though there is societal influence on the image in question. i think its somewhat ignorant to think that blind people dream in black and sound...
1051956
I am not blind and don't even know someone who is, but I should certainly think so - dreams are your brains way to deal what you experienced and are necessary for mental health. But probably blind person's dreams would be less visual than yours - maybe sounds are more dominant.
133124
The mind's eye sees differents than the eyes you see things with normally. Close your eyes and picture things in your mind. You still "see" in your mind, can't you? The blind person can likewise see in the mind's eye, providing that he wasn't born blind, and have had vision at some point in his life.\nI don't think that a person who has NEVER visualize anything in his life can view things a sighted person can, even in a dream.
1060421
I certainly seem to.  I have heard that people dream in black and white but remember the dreams in color, but that doesn't make sense to me.\n\nI had a dream just a few nights ago with very distinctive colors... a choppy brown ocean, a stormy blue sky, and a woman in a white dress wading in the water.
423562
maybe they also dream but not as what we experience. this is my theory about this, a person dreams of some things that maybe they experienced or things they imagined. as a blind, they don't know what the physical things look like but they can feel, they can hear and they can smell. their dreams are full of hearing, smelling, and feeling but no sight at all...
1117565
A number of states allow legally blind persons to get drivers licenses. Depending on eye conditions, a person may not be able to focus close up, requiring braille for reading and writing, but be able to function fairly well for distance.
1101833
You don't write what actually is the problem...\n\nWet dreams are normal to a certain extent.
1083220
It depends on what kind of blindness they have.  If they are born blind because of a problem with the areas of the brain that control sight, they will not have any sort of visual images in their dreams. Their brain cannot make the images if those areas are damaged.\n\nIf they are born blind because of a problem with thier eye or visual nerve, they may get "flashes" from the visual areas of the brain when random activity fires across them during sleep. But, they won't know what it is, and very little is remembered from most dreaming, anyway. They may even perceive, in their dream, that the "flash" is from a different sense that they DO have images and vocabulary for (sound, touch, taste, smell). They won't have any memories to pull on of real visual images. So even though they may "see" because of dream activity in that area of the brain, it isn't a "real" experience in thier dream.\n\nSomeone who was born with sight, and loses their vision later, WILL have dreams with visual images, because they have the memory to pull on, and images attached to language so that they can understand and remember.
222410
It is normal to have dreams each night as Rapid Eye Movement sleep associated with dreams is a normal part of the sleep process. Fifty per cent of infants have dreams but the frequency declines as we get older. Some people recall their dreams more than others. If you are having rapid eye movement dreams and are woken up, you will recall dreams. Dreaming is still a relatively understood process.
339167
They'd dream in pitch black as they have never had any visual points of reference. They do not know what things look like so cannot dream about it subconciously. Their dreams would involve sounds, emotions, thoughts and their perception of the seeing world.