The Dream Imagery of the Blind

The belief held by many people that the blind either do not dream at all or that if they do, their dreams must be very vague and incomplete is, as we shall endeavor to show in this paper, entirely erroneous. The majority of people are so accustomed to thinking and forming their mental images almost entirely in terms of vision that they are apt to forget that there are several other sense modalities in terms of which imagery may be built up. The blind not only dream just as vividly as the sighted but are perhaps less cognizant of the lack of vision when asleep than when awake. The writer, herself blind since birth except for light perception, dreams very frequently and vividly. The question of vision almost never enters into her dreams and she has no sense of physical deficiency as is sometimes the case in waking life.

In this paper an endeavor will be made by means of the presentation of case material to give some conception of the nature of the dreams had by blind persons. This material was obtained first from children examined in the Department for the Blind of the Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois School for the Blind; second from the writer's personal experience. As the time allowed for the procuring of the children's dreams was rather limited it was often impossible to obtain as detailed a description of the sense media employed as would have been desirable. For example, a child would often say “I saw” such and such an object; and only after careful questioning could it be ascertained that what he actually meant was that he had heard or felt it or merely known of its presence without the use of any of the special senses as is so often the case in dreams. The writer will therefore for the most part be compelled to confine such description to her own dreams. No attempt will be made in this paper to discuss the symbolism contained in any of the dreams recorded.

G. H., age twelve years four months, dreamed that he was talking to God who told him that he would r