• Question: can blind people have dreams

    Asked by 525urak36 to anuantony, Duncan, Jayne, Sajid on 16 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Sajid Javed

      Sajid Javed answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      i think they do but what the dream up is different depending on whether they were born blind or if they became blind. either way i think the best people to answer the question would be a blind person. you could contact a charity for the blind they may have information about it.

    • Photo: Duncan McNicholl

      Duncan McNicholl answered on 17 Nov 2017:

      I think they can, and I’ll tell you why: I can.
      .
      I’m not blind, but I have a thing that about 2-3% of people have called aphantasia. Doctors only recently realised this is a thing, and so they don’t know that much about it, but they’re working on it now. What it means for me is that I can’t see pictures when I close my eyes. Picture a bicycle. Is it red? Is it green? Is it a mountain bike or a road bike? Is there someone sitting on it? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, because when someone says “picture a bicycle” I just can’t. It’s not a problem for me, and I don’t think it needs a cure or anything, but it’s an interesting difference in how we experience the world, I think.
      .
      Anyway, to get back to the question, my brain can’t make pictures for me when I’m awake, but I still dream. I’m not really sure if I dream in pictures or not, but I definitely do dream, so I reckon blind people must dream too.

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