Yes, blind persons can dream; however, the degree of visual images that they can see depends on the nature of their blindness.
Certain things can be seen only by the blind, so said, Bill Joel. Shouldn't we then wonder if only certain dreams are the preserve of the vision impaired?
Earlier it was being thought that a blind was not capable of dreaming visually; that is, they were not able to 'see' their dreams if the blindness had set in before a particular age. However, the latest studies suggest that irrespective of the nature of blindness — whether from birth or inflicted with it later, all sightless humans can experience a visual dream.
Though the blind can dream alright, their dreams are somewhat different from those of the normal visioned humans. Sometimes the subject matter of their dreams is dependent on the stage of their lives when they lost their sight.
By and large the goings-on in a dream— provided that you can recollect one — itself is absurd. It usually comprises a mix of mundane and lots of strange happenings that evidently makes no sense. Interpreters of dreams have us believe that it can stem from the incidents of one's daily life, reflections of our psychosomatic insecurities or some sort of foreboding of our own premonitions.
A blind person's dream is no different to that of the sighted, but yes their dreams do reflect their own state of things just like anyone else's. A total of 372 dreams of different blind adults were noted over a period of two months in 1999. It emerged that blind people dreamt a lot about animals, especially their guide or service dogs, anything related to food and eating and interestingly some types of misfortunes that might directly affect them like colliding with objects/people, stumbling and tripping during their movement or travel. In fact, they dreamt about the last mentioned aspect almost twice more often than that of the normal sighted humans. It was also noted your dreams about personal failures likely to dream about aggressive interactions than their abler counterparts.
Opinions vary, but it’s thought generally, all blind have less visual imagery in their dreams, and those who went blind before they were five don't see images at all in their dreams. Those who lost their sight later have more visual dreams. Congenital blinds are likely to experience dreams through taste, smell, sound, and touch, while later day blinds have a more tactile approach to dreaming.
