Do Blind People See in Dreams and in Color?

[Tungamirai]

Do people who are born blind, see in their dreams. if they do do they see in color ?

 

[nismaratwork]

Good question, and a straightforward answer is forthcoming! If you have never had sight, at all, then you don't experience visual dreams. The reason seems to be that there is a need for visual stimulation to "wire" the brain in the necessary fashion to produce visual dreams. You get primarily auditory dreams, with some smell, taste, and touch in such dreams instead. If a person has had any sight, then there will be some visual elements.

 

[Tungamirai]

Does this mean that people who are born without one of there senses think differently and process information differentially?

 

[nismaratwork]

Think differently... I'm not sure that's true, but if you're never exposed to visual stimulus there is a lack synaptic growth in the visual cortex. You still have the equipment to see, but the brain hasn't been stimulated to form networks needed to process visual input. I think the best way to think of this is not so much that there is a difference, but that the "firmware" for sight is never initialized... there is nothing to tell that part of the human computer what to create for the mind's eye.

I think you're close with the processing of information, but the thought process... who knows? There are people with sight who have dyslexia, or are synesthetes, or see number forms, or have eidetic memories... they arguably process information differently. I don't think that makes them think differently as much as the internal process is altered, with the input and output ultimately matching in the end.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Does this mean that people who are born without one of there senses think differently and process information differentially?

Only in the sense that they must process non-visual information as a substitute for visual information. In the following study, a young woman describes objects as "beautiful" from the way they feel. Dreaming often dwells on the concerns blind persons have in moving about, and involves those senses they must rely on for safety: hearing, sensing vibrations, etc.

http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/hurovitz_1999a.html