What does a blind person see?

[griffkim]

I am a 45 year old woman and I've been fighting blindness for the last 9 years. I have a genetic disease called Pseudo Xanthoma Elasticum, www.PXE.org. There is no cure for this disease, yet. This is a race against time with stem cell research. I need new retinas. There is no such thing as a retina transplant.

What does blind look like? I will convey my experience but by no means am I the expert when it comes to this.

There is 'black' blind. This can happen when you're born or it can also happen when a retina full detaches. A retina detaching can definitely make a person see black for the rest of their life.

There is all different kinds of blindness but in the USA, when a person's visual acuity reaches 20/200 you are legally blind. This can not be corrected with prescription glasses. There are so many different diseases out there that can cause blindness that blind people can see things differently.

My left eye is 20/400 (beyond legally blind). I have a 'blank' (not black) spot, thus a blind spot, that covers the central vision. I can see peripherally. What this means is that I can see colors, shapes, movement, shadows. If you were in front of me I could see your hair color and perhaps your color of clothing but I couldn't make out your eyes, your nose, your mouth or even if you were male/female. This of looking at a clock on the wall and not being able to tell the time. Losing central vision is one type of blindness. Other people lose their peripheral vision and can only see centrally. Sometimes, on really bad vision days, I have an entire solar system of debris floating in my eyeball as if there was a blizzard going on.



My right eye is 20/25 corrected, but I'm fighting with everything I have to save my vision. In addition to PXE, my retinas are very fragile and tear and want to detach. I have had countless surgeries. I also have a colon cancer drug ( Avastin, Lucentis, Eyelea, etc) injected into my eye to help keep the offending hemorrhaging blood vessels at bay.

I've kept my disability quiet at work but I now only have 50% of my right eye left that can see. As my doctor said to me, you're working on one spare tire and it's running out of air. If I go blind in my right eye, I will no longer be able to drive a car or read a book. Thank goodness for audio books.

What does blindness look like? The words isolating and loneliness comes to mind.

 

[Evo]

I am a 45 year old woman and I've been fighting blindness for the last 9 years. I have a genetic disease called Pseudo Xanthoma Elasticum, www.PXE.org. There is no cure for this disease, yet. This is a race against time with stem cell research. I need new retinas. There is no such thing as a retina transplant.

I am so terribly sorry to hear of your condition. I hope that you can retain some vision.

 

[Skepticus]

a person born blind cannot tell you since he has never seen black.
a person who becomes blind... what does he see?

does he see black?... and if so.. why?

if a person has absolutely no nerves going from the eye to the brain.
does the brain register that as black? and why?

First we have to consider whether SEEING is a perception process by the brain and the mind; independent of signals from the eyes. If this is true, then a born-blind person or a blinded one will all "see" blackness. Otherwise, if seeing is a perception process which depends on signals from the eyes to exist, then a blind person and a blinded one will response by asking: "What does seeing means?" Buddha stated that the first case is true, the same with hearing, the sense of hearing does not disappear with no input (still hear, but hear nothing), and hear something again once there is a noise. You decide.

black is supposed to be the sum of all colors. if you take all colors of the rainbow and mix them together. do you not get black?

so black is not the lack of color but all colors seen at the same time.

No, the opposite. We get white light from the sun because of all the colors at once. Black is the absence of light, as when we see an object as black is because instead of being reflected, all light colors are absorbed by that object. The more absorption, the blacker it will look. If the absorption is selective, such as all but red is absorbed, then the red light will reflect out to our eyes to see the object as red.