i want to know this. how do people who are blind dream? and i mean both blind since birth and someone wha has grown blind. i recently went to this place called lighthouse for the blind, it is a place where thet employ blind people for mechanical manual labor. pretty depressing. also i have been reading the Dune series (those who have read it will know what that has to do with the blind). i have been thinking more about this subject so if anyone has any info about blind dreams, please post.
I’v heard of people hearing in dreams when they have never heard before in there life. I believe that it is possible. Our minds have so much that we don’t even know about.In my dreams I’ve done things I’ve never done in life before and I knew and felt what it was like in my dreams. It’s weird when you eat something in your dream you’ve never eaten before,then eat it in real life and it tastes the same as in your dream. So This saying says it best when talking about our brain,“We’ve only scratched the surface”
Coincidently, I was thinking about posting your exact question.
For your question… I don’t have a scientifically proven answer, but I think people who were born blind have dreams that are very similar to people with normal vision. For one, I assume blind people have a supurb spatial sense. I’m sure they can picture objects quite well in their head by feeling them. Also, I’m thinking evolution (if you believe in it that is) might pass down some sorts of instincts or something that might give blind people a concept of what stuff looks like. Well, besides man-made stuff I’m guessing.
For people who became blind part-way in their life, I’m quite positive they have dreams almost exactly like people with normal vision. I don’t see why they wouldn’t.
Being blind must really suck, but I’m thinking it could give you an edge to LDing; you can use it as a great RC. “I can see therfore I MUST be dreaming!” Of course I’d rather keep my sight if I had the choice.
Matt
Hmm, i’ve seen this discussed on alt.dreams.lucid a long time ago i think.
Someone said that blind people that was blind from birth or from a specific age (can’t remember), only had dreams with strong tactile sensations and a lot of sound.
thanks! I have always wondered that! At least if you’re blind (from 7+) you can see in your dream, that’s a plus.
I wonder if it would be possable for a non-blind person and a blind person to have a shared dream so that the blind person could see the non-blind one. I know, a bit far fetched, but it could be possable
thanks y’all. well that answers my question. 
well if i ever go blind i now know i at least will still be able to see in my dreams. so… alright thanks.
eh? 
I’ve only read Dune and half of Dune Messiah but what has it to do with the blind?
the only thing I can think of is the blind guy who lost his eyes in a war and didn’t want to get Tlielaxu eyes.
Or does it come later?
yeah well that guy who lost his eyes is the most important character in the first two books. what i meant by bringin him up is that when he goes blind from the stone burner he uses his prescient visions and dreams to see. i don’t know… maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with blind dreams but what the hell. 
People who are blind from birth will probably make the best of what they have.In fact I heard that if the suddenly had the ability to see it would probably be chaos for them.Their brain couldn’t make sense of what they were seeing.I watched this one show where I heard a blind man say(This is pretty close to what he said,I think),“I couldn’t imagine the world any other way”
There’s a movie with Val Kilmer that’s based on a true story where a man loses his sight and regains it for a short period of time, I suggest watching it if interested in blindness.
Yeah, people who’ve been blind from birth and regain their sight usually go into a shock-like state for a few days (or maybe longer). After all, wouldn’t you?
According to my way too expensive psychology book, people that lose their vision even later in life slowly stop dreaming with vision. Their dreams become fully auditory.
I read somewhere about a blind lucid dream. Apparently the guy could ‘see’ to a long distance by a kind of three dimensional tactile sensation… not the kind of thing we sighted folk can imagine easily, but could be an interesting ld experiment…
If you can for a minute, think about a time when someone described something to you, that you had never seen.
It’s a little different becausewe use descriptive words that we already can visualize, red, furry, bright, and so on…
but we make up our own version of what we think that person is trying to describe. Which in reality may look nothing like the thing… but we can still imagine it.
now… if you took a blind person to a tree, and made him feel it, and hug it (for it’s shape), and smell it. then gave him a twig, and told him to feel it, then gave him a leaf, and told him to trace around it with his fingers until he got to know it…
then, told him that the tree, extends up to the sky, and at the top, poking out of the tube shapped structure that he just hugged, were branches just like the twig he was holding, and from those branches were thousands of leaves, just like the one he just traced with his hand…
It may not look exactly like what we see, but wouldn’t he make up his own version of a tree, and be able to see that in his dream?
hmm… maybe? maybe not? Just a thought!
~qriosity~
I personally doubt so… this people have not even seen a color, ligh or just a simple shape at all! it will just be impossible to imagine i think… probably why people go into shock when they get their vision back also. I do think that they can imagine tactile/audio senses much stronger than us “normal” people though. But anyway if the person has had vision before and then lost it later on, then i believe they should be able to dream/imagine with visuals
well people who are born blind dont see in there dreams at all but they hear and feel more vividly like if we get shot at we see and hear it when a blind person is shot at they feel it. and people who go blind partway through there life will be able to see in there dreams but after a while the picture starts to fade to the point where they are blind in there dreams also.i hope that answered your question. (i got that from this book called do fish drink water,it has a bunch of weird questions like that in it)
People who are born blind cannot see in their dreams, there minds would not have been able form the right neural connections the reason people that get blindness halfway through there lives have dreams with sight and then iyt starts to fade is because the neural connections start to diminish
I’m deaf… and yet I still dream that I could hear.
Also I got some chance to dream what it’s like to be dreaming in full touching sensation without any ability to see. It was very vivid. It felt real so I must say that yes, theorically… according to my experience and my friend (he is deaf and blind), that they do STILL dream, in same intensity and vividness.
I agree with what it says about being born blind cannot see in their dreams since they cannot interpret that. For me theorically, I interpret the sounds in my dreams because I am able to feel the vibration… I don’t know how to explain that and plus I hear really LOUD sounds few times in my lifetime so I kinda know what it is supposed to sound like or how it is supposed to feel. My subconscious do the rest. 
Don’t feel bad for them, they do dream and they are bright in spirit when you get to know them. 
You will be surprised at how they adapt to it by listening or feeling more carefully.
Dream long and prosper! 
This topic popped up in conversation at lunch yesterday.
I have just one question for you guys… Assuming people blind from birth do not visualize anything… HOW CAN THEY DISTINGUISH DREAMS FROM REALITY? Our two most reliable reality tests, words and clocks are purely visual things.
I’ve often had my eyes closed in my sleep, and I could not tell if I was dreaming until I open them. But before I opened them, I could have been dreaming or awake and would be unable to tell.
Any one know the answer to this?
there is one reality check that you can use if you cannot see, hear… fill in the blank, plugging your nose and seeing if you can still breathe. That is my RC that I use in dark rooms when I don’t have my watch on.
Very cool that you can hear in your dreams DM7 That must be quite an experiance!