Before moving on to the research on the subject, the question “Can visually impaired individuals dream?” What would your answer be?
Although there is a general belief that visually impaired people do not dream, researches do not support this information. Let’s take a look at these surprising results together.
Contrary to the reality we all believe in, it is not correct to generalize that “not all visually impaired people can dream”.
Visually impaired people can dream, depending on the age at which their disability occurs. The way a dream is seen also depends on how that person experiences the “visual”. In other words, theoretically, not only visual dreams, but also auditory and sensory dreams can be seen.
This situation differs depending on how the person in a state of sleep evokes the memory and remembers it by associating it with what. However, since it depends on visual experience, it seems almost impossible for people with congenital visual impairment to have visual dreams. As we mentioned at the beginning, this situation is variable according to age.
People who have lost their visual ability at the age of 5 and who are born blind cannot have visual dreams.
People who experience this disability before the age of 5 or are born visually impaired can dream auditory, sensory and olfactory apart from visual. Among people who lose this ability when they are older than 5 years old, the content of their dreams varies completely depending on the person.
One of two different individuals who became blind at the age of 6 has visual dreams, while the other has non-visual dreams. Individual differences also affect the way dreams are seen in such a situation. However, there is an exception that in the dreams of people who have lost their sight at the age of 7 and later, the images show themselves as closest to reality. You can’t imagine how important this situation is to them!
At this point we need to distinguish blindness from each other. An injury to the eye is not the same thing as a visual impairment due to an injury to the brain.
Blindness that occurs as a result of damage to the brain, depending on the condition of the damage to the brain, whether the person is blind before the age of 5 or 20; In no way is the person able to dream because the brain cannot process images.
However, if there is no problem in the visual processing of the person’s brain, only if there is damage from the eyes, such a situation is not very valid.
As a result of a study conducted on visually impaired people, it was determined that the dreams they saw mostly consisted of memories they recorded.
Emotional and physical experiences that a person has lived are very effective in dreaming. This is much more common in visually impaired people. When we look at the dreams of people with visual impairment, it is observed that they usually have memories or dreams.
While you normally dream of people we have never seen and situations that we have never been in, imagine that you suddenly find yourself in a dream full of memories, although it sounds good, it doesn’t feel good in the long run.
The sense of touch is one of the most important senses that visually impaired people use in their dreams.
The sense of touch in dreams provides different experiences and makes it easier for us to get an idea about objects. It is indispensable for the dreams of the visually impaired. The feeling of running and walking in a dream can cause a person to feel a tingling in their feet in reality.
Besides touching, hearing is also an essential part of dreams.
Sounds, conversations, music, nature sounds and even one’s own inner voice are the keys to dreams. Visually impaired people may perceive the sounds they hear in their dreams as they would in real life.
The experiences of individuals with congenital or acquired visual impairment are very important in their dreams and in their lives. It can be felt over and over again in people’s dreams every time they live. Dreams, in which people’s dreams and subconscious realities are revealed without intervention, can provide clues about real life. Dreams of visually impaired individuals are of extra importance in such a situation.
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