Discourse on Being Blind

Discourse on Being Blind

Joseph Parish

One can sit and wonder what they would see if they were blind and this is a common question posed by normal seeing people. The most important key point of information here would be if one were born blind, or if it occurred at some point in their lives. As an example, if you, or I was to close our eyes this is not the same as blindness. In that case, perhaps you may be wondering what a blind person would see.

First, there are several different degrees of blindness, which must be taken into consideration. Let’s take a person who has been blind from birth. We will use an individual named Steveland Hardaway Judkins, or as he is professionally known as Stevie Wonder. The future singer was born six weeks prematurely, and he suffered from what is known as retinopathy, as a result. What this entails is that his blood vessels within the rear of his eyes failed to grow, and reach the front of his eyes. Stevie Wonder was thus born without the ability to see.

This predicament opens up a whole new set of questions to be answered, as to whether Stevie Wonder knows that he is black, since he has no concept of colors, however that could be an issue to be covered at some other time.

Saying that a blind person sees black is not correct for the individual who is blind from birth actually has no sensation of sight from which they can compare a color with. What they see is “nothingness". If you are a sighted individual try and think of being blind as follows. Close one of your eyes and use your open eye to focus upon some nearby object. Now what do you see with your closed eye? The answer is simple, you see nothing.

Those people who are blind as a result of an accident, or mishap and have lost their ability to see have a different experience. Although some may describe the experience as seeing in complete darkness and nothing more, it would be compatible with being in a totally enclosed room with no light source what-so-ever. Some people relate that they see sparks or some sort of visual hallucination which would likely take the form of previously recognized colors, flashes of light or random shapes.

It stands to reason that a person like Stevie Wonder would experience dreams, however, these dreams would not contain any images. Mr. Wonder’s dreams would contain various sounds, tactile information, miscellaneous odors and flavors, along with feelings. When we compare this to an individual who had their sight, and lost it, we find that the dreams would then contain an abundance of images.

If objects appear within the subject’s dreams, they would depend upon the type of blindness being experienced. In general, the visions seen in the dream would be comparable to those visions which the person had previously experienced throughout their life. As an example of this point, a person with color blindness will not actually begin dreaming with new colors. An individual whose vision had degraded over a period of time might dream with considerable clarity reflecting upon their earlier days, while someone with corrective lenses may experience a similar trait. A dream is likely to be in focus or not according to the dreamers past experiences.

An interesting fact that has been discovered is that REM (Rapid Eye Movement) also takes place in blind people even though they do not dream in images. The REM activity is less likely to occur in those people who were blind from birth, but can occur.

This is an interesting area of exploration and would certainly be deserving of further study.

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