# Do blind people dream?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 28, 2000, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247 "2000-04-28T10:23:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dave\_Marini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/278dde/32.png) [@Dave\_Marini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Marini)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247/1 "2000-04-28T10:23:00Z")

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Do blind people dream? If so, in what way?

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**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2000, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247/2 "2000-04-28T11:33:00Z")

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Uncle Cecil covered this topic in [What are the dreams of the blind like?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_310.html). According to him, “in general the dreams of the congenitally blind contain no visual elements and consist predominantly of sound plus smell, touch and the sense of movement.”

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**Author:** ![sharkboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@sharkboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharkboy)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2000, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247/3 "2000-04-29T12:58:53Z")

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I am pefectly sighted(except when I’m blind drunk) and I sometimes dream in emotions. Sounds odd eh? Usually there is no other aspect or sense to these dreams but I know what is going on. I wake up and feel intensely emotional, either extaticor on the verge of tears. Really odd but very satisfying. All I ever want to do afterwards is cuddle my wife. Does this make me a new man?

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**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2000, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-blind-people-dream/11247/4 "2000-04-29T16:14:44Z")

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kaylasmom is congenitally blind, and dreams every night. Sometimes, she is able to recall details of her dreams well enough to be able to describe them to me (particularly when she has my famous chili for dinner :D). Based upon her own testimony, she surmises reportable details such as size/mood/activity level of the dream “characters” from the same type of observational cues that she uses to inform her waking experience.

So, yeah. Blind people dream, and it is pretty much the way Unca Cece reported it.