Have you ever wondered what the dreams of the blind are like? The answer depends on if and how long a blind person could ever see.

In REM phase sleep, blind people show little or no rapid eye movement. The longer they’ve been blind, the fewer the movements. It is generally thought that those who are congenitally blind or who have lost their sight at an early age (up to 3 or 4 years) do not dream with visual images. However, they report that the content of their dreams are rich with sounds, smells and tactile sensations. One man who had been blind since birth described his dreams thusly:

“In my dreams I never see, but I can hear, speak and also smell. Also, I very rarely dream that I am walking along the street with a cane. However, in real life, I do it very often.”

However, those who have lost their sense of sight as slightly older children (after about 7 or eight years old) report that at first they were able to dream with visual images, but gradually began to lose these images with time. In some cases, visual images eventually disappeared altogether. Those who have lost their sight at an adult age usually can dream some days with visual images, and other days without them.

Both sleep laboratory studies and home dream reports have reached the conclusion that individuals blinded before the age of about 5 report no visual imagery in dreams as adults, whereas those blinded after about the age of 7 are likely to retain visual imagery in dreaming. These studies have theoretical implications beyond the issue of blindness because they suggest that the mental imagery necessary for dreaming develops between the ages of 4 and 7. This helps to explain why preschool children rarely report dreams and that the reports are uneventful and static on the few occasions on which they do recall dreams. Thus, the findings on blind dreamers seem to lend support to a cognitive theory of dreaming.

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