Dreaming at night is one of the many quirks of the brain. This topic has been exciting the minds of scientists for many decades. However, the question of what dreams a blind person can see is still not fully understood.
An experiment that was carried out in Copenhagen
Back in 2014, one of the medical journals published an article on the results of a study by neuroscientists from the University of Copenhagen. For the experiment, 25 blind participants were selected, 11 of whom were disabled from birth, the remaining 14 lost their sight between the ages of one and 14 years. Along with a group of blind people, 25 completely healthy people took part in the study. For four weeks each day, participants shared memories of their nightly dreams with scholars.
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Answers in the form of a survey
The volunteers also answered some general questions. For example, scientists were interested in the form in which their dreams are born, what they see in their dreams and whether they experienced strong fears the day before.
The results of the experiment were amazing
Oddly enough, the blind participants reported to scientists about a much richer and wider range of feelings and experiences in comparison with their healthy colleagues. Sleep could replace the functions that were once lost. Blind people reported brighter sensations of sound, touch, taste and smell. At the same time, ordinary people, as a rule, remember only visual sensations.
Comparison within the blind group
But if we consider the experience of people within the group of the blind itself, then there were certain differences. Participants who did not acquire blindness from birth managed to get acquainted with some visual experience, which they successfully preserved on a subconscious level. Consequently, having already acquired blindness, these people continue to see in their dreams a visual series familiar from childhood.
The research team's report noted that individuals with non-birth blindness described the visual effects of dreams in detail orally, using a rich vocabulary. Sometimes the listeners had doubts: are there really blind people in front of them? Also, scientists were able to identify a curious pattern. The longer a person remained blind by the time of the experiment, the poorer and shorter his memory was, the more vague and vague visual impressions were felt.
From the point of view of the plot of the dream
However, the emotions and themes of dreams remained more or less similar. No significant differences were observed between groups in this. There was no bias towards positive or negative social situations or aggressive interactions.
Why are people who are blind from birth more likely to have nightmares?
The only distinguishing feature of people who were blind from birth was the markedly increasing frequency of nightmares. Typical dreams of representatives of this subgroup were fears of death under the wheels of a car, loss of a guide dog or falling into a deep hole. The researchers did not delve too deeply into the essence of the phenomenon, but they expressed their assumptions. In their opinion, such nightmares can serve as a "shock absorber" for blind people for daily worries. Most of the problems in this category revolve around feelings or lack thereof. All these experiences, one way or another, find a way out in night dreams.