Dreaming for the Blind

Hello everyone. I’ve thought quite a bit about what it must be like to dream if you’re blind at birth. I’ve wondered. “What do blind people see while dreaming?”, “Do they see things?”, “What kinds of things do they dream about?” etc.

I wonder if you’d have all 5 senses in dreams. Or just the other 4? In my opinion it is a very interesting subject. I would just like to hear your input.

Have you ever talked to someone who has experienced this before? Are there any first hand accounts that you know about? What do you think it would be like?

Edit: I am not asking whether blind people dream lucidly, or have dreams. I’m asking what you think it would be like or if anyone has heard of any first hand experiences.

Just to be clear, I am sighted.
This subject is one I find extremely interesting. I have read quite a few interviews about it, actually.
If someone has been blind their entire life, they don’t dream with vision. If someone has memory of a time when they could see, they may dream with vision, or they may not.
I have been thinking about this, however. I think it may not always be true. As sighted people, we could give ourselves 360° vision or exist in two places at one during a lucid dream.
So, I think it may be possible for a blind person to give themselves vision during a lucid dream. Of course, it would be only as their mind imagines it to be, but it is just a theory.

I agree. I think that they can see some things, but only as they envision them. Maybe swirls of white light, or a solid shape, etc. Another thing that I find interesting is the thought of someone who is blind picturing colors. Whether it is just impossible for them to do it or if they see something that we cannot is a very strange idea. I’m sure that being blind does have its benefits such as being able to picture things that we cannot. We usually restrict thoughts to what we have experienced with our senses. The blind don’t have the sense of sight, so they don’t have that restriction. People who can see can picture things that they haven’t seen. But, when it comes down to it everything that we picture is, even if it is at the most fundamental level, based on what we have seen before.

What a coincidence, I was earlier thinking about deaf people hearing in dreams.

I’ve heard that butterflies can see nine primary colours, I think someone told me, but searching, I found only that they are able to see more colours than we human beings. The number makes no difference, what I’d like to ask is about the possibility of seeing more colours in lucid dreams. It doesn’t matter if it would be just an illusion, I’d like to know if one could perceive another colour that doesn’t look like any other. I would try this myself, but since I’ve never had anything else than about five poor lucid dreams, I wish you could tell me your experiences.

Ha! I was talking about this just yesterday with a friend.

Well, I’m not sure, but I think they wouldn’t be able to see anything beyond simple shapes or something. And I even think they wouldn’t be able to do this without being lucid… but who am I to talk about these things, I don’t even know the slightest bit about blind people. It’s just my imagination.

And about the butterfly-vision… has anyone tried that before? I think our brain would be having a hard time imagining a colour it doesn’t know. I think the closest you could get to that is that your brain shows you a colour which changes slightly as you’re looking at it, so you’ll be tricked into believing it’s a new colour. But… who knows!

Gah, so much to investigate once I’m getting better LDs than just a few seconds. :anx: