Life's Great Mysteries - If someone is blind from birth, what do they see in their dreams?

Dreams are visual. In fact, my dreams are almost entirely visual—at least the parts I remember. If I were to rank the sensory aspects of my dreams, the top spot would be the visuals, followed perhaps by certain feelings, such as frustration (those pesky dreams where I have no lesson planned, but I have to teach a class right now) or euphoria (being able to fly). And, to be honest, those feelings often result from the visual aspects of the dreams. Occasionally, I remember sounds. For example, long ago I had an amazing dream about aliens invading Earth (they turned out to be friendly). Numerous ships of all sizes and shapes were zipping around or floating ominously in place. At one point, a dragonfly-sized robotic thingy flew up to me and hovered in front of my face, apparently checking me out, then it flew off. To this day I remember the chittering sound of its mechanical wings. But that’s rare—usually I don’t remember many of the voices or other sounds from my dreams. In my flying dreams, I remember feeling the cool night air as I fly over the trees. However, such touch sensations are few and far between. And, I don’t have any memories at all of smells in my dreams. So, for me, my dreams are mostly visual. Which is why this question is such a mystery to me. What do blind people experience in their dreams?

According to the Sleep Foundation, it depends on how long the person has been blind. Not surprisingly, those who became blind later in life do indeed experience visual dreams. After all, they've had visual experiences, which their minds can recreate in dreams. However, those with congenital blindness (blind from birth) are more difficult to study, and researchers disagree on the answer. Why is it difficult to study their dreams? Think about it… they have no experiences with vision, therefore they have no experiences from which to describe visual dreams. This makes it difficult for a researcher to determine if the subjects’ verbal descriptions really describe visual scenes.

Interestingly, researchers have found that many congenitally-blind people are able to draw pictures of what they “saw” in their dreams, in the same way that sighted people can. To me, this is convincing evidence that congenitally-blind people can have visual dreams, even though they have never seen anything in their entire life. Most researchers, however, believe blind people have far fewer visions in their dreams than sighted people. And, as when they are awake, their minds make up for the lack of visual experiences by increasing other sensory experiences, such as sound, taste, touch, and smell.

Photo Credits:
- Man dreaming - DepositPhotos