What Do Blind People Actually See?
nautil.us
What Do Blind People Actually See?
1–10 of 119 posts
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#2As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#3As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.
Have you considered a haptic device like the one in the article?
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#4I still want that vibrating compass belt.
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#5As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.
I've always wondered how someone born blind is able to wrap their mind around the concept of color. It appears you've done so -- how would you describe color?
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#6As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.
I am not blind, but I do occasionally get migraines with visual auras, as do my wife & mother. Exactly once in my life that I recall, I had a migraine that caused total perceptual blindness (oddly, this has also happened exactly once to my wife, before we knew each other). It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darkness closing in, it's juts nothing- the field you can see is smaller, and there's still nothing outside of it, just like there always isn't. Like what the back of your head looks like, as the article says.
In the end, you literally see Nothing. It's truly bizarre[1]. It's not an experience I particularly want to repeat, but I'm kinda glad it happened just once, for the empathy value. It's not really something that can be effectively described if you haven't (not) seen it yourself; even now, I have trouble re-imagining the experience, 'cause my memory wants to fill in blackness or grayness or whatever. But at least in theory I now know exactly what the Nothing from _The Neverending Story_ (doesn't) look(s) like. :)
[1] What makes it even more bizarre is that migraine blindness is a strictly neurological effect- there's no damage to your eyes or optic nerves- which means you can get temporary blindsight. In my wife's case, this meant she managed to walk a couple blocks home from a friend's house, crossing suburban streets and so forth, totally normally, while all the while convinced that she was completely blind. Which, as far as conscious perception goes, was the truth!
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#7Strange that the article doesn't mention the blind spot that everyone as.
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#8I still want that vibrating compass belt.
I've also been really interested in using one ever since reading about them last year. Seems like it'd be a good Kickstarter opportunity.
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#9I still want that vibrating compass belt.
I wonder if it could be done more subtly, perhaps with a few vibrating motors embedded in the skin around one ankle.
Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?
#10As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.
I've always wondered how someone born blind is able to wrap their mind around the concept of color. It appears you've done so -- how would you describe color?
Why should the concept of color be harder to wrap one's mind around or describe than the concept of sight itself? Or, considering any animal with any kind of sensory receptors other than those you yourself have, wrapping your mind around or describing the concept of the data produced by such receptors? [A bat's echolocatory sense, say, or magnetoception...]
["Oh, it's easy to understand the PHYSICS and BIOLOGY of color, but can the blind really comprehend the EXPERIENCE of color?", some might say. Alright, fine, shades of "What Mary Didn't Know", but I'm not keen to get into that.]