Yes. Just because a person is blind, even from when it was born, it can still dream. You may think to yourself, how can a blind person dream if they dont know what anything looks like? Well just by feeling something, they have a distinct thought in their mind of what it looks like. Tey can also dream of different shapes and colors, because of the imagination section of their brain. I hope this answers your question.

Yes, blind people do have dreams. However, those blind since birth or very early childhood have no visual imagery in their dreams. Instead, they experience a very high percentage of taste, smell, and touch sensations in their dreams. The breakdown is as follows: There are no visual images in the dreams of those born without any ability to experience visual imagery in waking life. Individuals who become blind before the age of five seldom experience visual imagery in their dreams. Those who become sightless between the ages of five and seven may or may not retain some visual imagery. Most people who lost their vision after age seven continue to experience at least some visual imagery, although its frequency and clarity often fade with time. Source: http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/hurovitz_1999a.html This is a rather scholarly paper and dry reading. For more information, go to google.com, search on "blind people dream" and you'll get links to many sites about the dreams of the blind.

I remember being laughed at for asking this very same question to a blind man who visited my primary school a few years ago, although I still think it was a pretty valid question. The man's reply was that yes, he did dream, and his most recent one had been about flying in an aeropane. Obviously, this man wasn't born blind; he must have seen an aeroplane before he lost his sight.

Answer from somebody who has been blind since she was fairly young: " Yes, blind people do dream. What they see in their dreams depends on how much they could ever see. If someone has been totally blind since birth, they only have auditory dreams. If someone such as I, has had a measure of sight, then that person dreams with that measure of sight. I still dream as though I can see, colors included. For people I've met since, their faces are just blurs or how I imagine they look. To me, someone like my mother looks forever 30. "

In addition to what everyone else has already said, you do not have to see something to be able to have dreams. You'd be surprised at how much sound can affect the way you live. I read a study where the teacher had the class watch a scene of a movie without music in the background. Then they watched the same scene again with the music and the students felt like the second version with the music was more realistic and helped them feel the mood. Maybe a blind person has not seen an airplane but I'm sure he probably heard one. Maybe he's heard people talk about what it's like to fly one. Maybe he's listened to a movie and can recognize what a plane going down sounds like. I "watched" Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with a friend who is blind. Yeah, I watched it and he listened. Of course it's not the most enjoyable experience I've ever had because I had to explain everything that was going on when there was no dialogue. But I'm sure audio greatly influences their dreams. If you ever listen to Opera or a musical the words and music completely tell a story without visuals even being necessary.

Blind people definitely must be dreaming. But do they see visuals in their dreams? Regarding people who are blind from birth, I am afraid we shall never be able to give an answer. How would they be able to tell us if they did "see" something in their dreams? How would they know if they did "see" something in their dreams, for they have never seen anything else? People who have vision have taken sight for granted and presume that blind people would know what sight is too...Even if they do "see" in their dreams, they would never be able to realise it. Take for an example a description I am giving of my home. "You enter the house and come into a huge hall. Now while facing the door you came in through, to your back would be the kitchen. To your right would be the way to the two bedrooms. One bedroom is parallel to the hall and the other is parallel to the kitchen." An image does get formed in your mind about the house I am describing, but can you guarantee that the house would resemble your imagination? It's the same for blind people. They have only heard of people describing sight and they would imagine sight to be something. But actually, in their dreams, they might be "seeing" things but not realise that the sensation that they get is indeed "sight". Perhaps if he had a magician like "Mandrake" (comic book legend) who could use hypnosis to project people thoughts on a screen, then we would be able to get a clear cut answer to the question, "Do blind people see in their dreams?"

It's kind of weird that I'd find this question right after I asked a blind friend about this. She said that in her dreams she doesn't see anything, but just senses that they are there. She says in her dreams she is more aware than she is in real life but can't see anything. After all, everyone both blind and sighted, dream about things they know and have experienced. We just jumble it up when we dream.

With all this in mind, do all people have non-visual dreams? Or do we depend so much on vision we can't even think without it?

Answer/Question ... I read a little about experiments conducted on this topic .In all the ones i read about, they got their results through writeing or recording what the person dreamed about. Blind people who where blind from birth don't use visual discriptions for their dreams, while blind people who became blind after they were 5 years old did . Does anyone know of a much more proficiant experiment were their was mybe tracking of frontal loab activity (especially the area in wich the brain processes sight) ? Iin my opinion, even if those who were blind from birth could see some abstract shapes, they wouldn't know how to discribe sight .

just because they are blind does not mean that they do not have an imagination

The massive amounts of imagery and non-filtered multi-hued variable sensations experienced by human beings who are bearers of this thing called "sight", can overload the mind and Hippocampus or memory storage of the brain. The process of dreaming is a way of setting things into a sytematic order and process, so that the person does not overload his or her cerebral and emotional circuitry. "A blind person dreaming" is a cuaint inquisition from one who is not necessarily without this incredible perceptionary function and gift. The topic can be metamorphosized into branched routes and rabbittrails due to the multiplicity of differences in both "Blind" and "Blind since Birth" titles. "Synaesthesia" Indeed, has the capacity of joining two or more senses into a channel or mode of informational intake and life experiencing... yet within this realm (or diagnosis) there is also a very powerful and perpetual drive to, again, reorder and process the sequences for the purpose of functioning and fructification. One of the writers, mentioned the key word "Imagination" in their posted sentence. Imagination without a set figurativly "bearable" foundation or understandable basis for survival and sanity... will automatically be transformed into chaos and confusion. A person born blind has learned to stand upon principles and cause and effect lessons learned throughout life. Upon this platform, dreams can actually be major agents of healing, humor and dealing with daily living within their own personal mechanisms and maintenance memories. Helen Keller lived a most frustrating and utterly trepidation-based existance, until a wonderful human being began issueing and patiently systematically handing her basic life "keys" of which I am sharing with this symposium. As the "beginning" Genesis account of the Hebrew biblical writings, a wild, obscure and warped world was penetrated with archival measures, light, divisions, sub-categories, limitations and boundaries. The results... were fantastic, unimagineably bursting with variations of pure colored exhistances, and even peacful and harmoniously enjoyable pleasure. In the context of my openning statement, if, these very same beautiful "creations", sounds, smell, sensations and sights were without the process of dreaming... we would be back where we first started. Blind* No Blind people do not dream. People who can see life with various "eyes" or channels to the mind and soul, be it occular, audible or any other... are the only ones that do so. A smarter question might be "Does a cyclops see in 3D?"...........LOL. (AP-07 chronicles)

Yes however but they don't see in there dreams, they feel it, if a blind person were to dream that they got punched in there right arm in the dream they would feel that pain.

im sure they do

Yes!

yes!they can dream and fulfill that dream soon!and i can help them by giving them a chance to see how beatiful life is...

My colleagues and I were discussing this yesterday, and as one of them put it, dreams are a combination of several channels of input, sight being just one of them. For those of us gifted with sight, the "visual" channel is pretty dominant, hence the importance to "seeing" dreams. For those in whom the "visual" channel is not dominant or non-existent (blind from birth), other dominant channels (sound, taste, smell...) will play greater role. So dreaming would be derived from all available input channels. In this sense, just the term "dreaming", and not "seeing a dream", will be more generic and would mean to "experience".

Oh, I do hope so. What a terrible thing if they couldn't. But, I'm sure another question you could ask is "What do blind people dream of?". I'm sure they do, though, because of pretty much all the answers that have a more knowledge quality above me.

Yes.What are yr reasons for doubting.Their brains are as active as any other person.It is the sight bit which does not feed the brain with its inputs.

Arvind B, It is possible for a blind person to know if they can se in a dream, even if blind since birth. It is merely a process of elimination with regard to the five senses. If a person is only blind, then they have four senses: smell, taste, touch, and hearing. These four things they will experience in waking life. If they experience something that is not one of the above, it may be sight.

No

They can dream. My great uncle is in my dreams all the time. so I guess they can dream and are in dreams.

No. Blind people real, Tarzan. :-)

Their dreams are auditory if they've never seen ANYTHING ever, but heard. If they haven't been blind from birth, then they dream from what they have seen - the colours and shapes and everything.

No. Blind people are quite real.

There is no visual images of blind people.

I would think if you are sleeping (became blind after age five), then it is possible to see in a dream! your brain does the dreaming not your eyes!

well if someone is blind... how would their mind know what things look like to dream about them

This question is very unique and I must admit that I have never thought about it before.We seem to take it for granted that we sometimes have dreams and they are usually so vivid that sometimes you feel that you have actually been to the place in your dream.I have read in the answers given that blind persons see colours and sense things when they are dreaming.I find this subject very fascinating and I am now wondering if they can experience a nightmare,and as they have never seen anything horrific I am wondering if they experience fear and wake up distressed as we sighted people sometimes do.If blind people actually see colours as stated, this is something unique in itself,because all my dreams seem to be in black and white.