There are some questions that most people are just too afraid to ask. Perhaps there are some questions that people are afraid to know the answer to as well. While many people have once asked the question “how do blind people dream?” few have ever asked the question “how do blind people know when to stop wiping?” after… well, you know. This question may be a little cruder but it is still a great question. Today, we answer both.
Dreams for most people are heavily visual, so for a person who can’t see, the question is if they see anything in their dreams. The majority of blind people are not born that way. Their eyesight slowly degrades overtime or they lose their eyesight in an accident. These people do still dream of visual pictures. However, those who have never seen anything in their life are unable to do this. People who have been blind all their life instead report the strong feelings of other senses. While audio is a strong feature for both those who can see and those who can’t, touch, taste, and smell are not key for people with vision but are stronger for the blind.
This shows how different the dream state is for blind people but there are everyday simple challenges that they must overcome that we take for granted. One of the simplest of these is going to the bathroom. When you imagine going to the bathroom, the importance of visual cues doesn’t stand out. However, if you go to the toilet today and try and do everything with your eyes closed you will see exactly how difficult things become.
One of the most difficult aspects is hygiene. When do you know you have cleaned enough without over-cleaning every time. You could take the approach of cleaning a lot every time just to be safe but this is not a great idea. Instead, most blind people say they are able to know when is the right time by feel alone. While it sounds tricky, if you practice it a number of times, the feel will start to make sense to you too.
While this may sound like a strange topic to discuss, we wanted to take the discussion to everyday real activities. While the discussions of dreams are fun and interesting they don’t hold anyone back in their everyday life. People with disabilities have to overcome huge challenges in the tiny things that we take for granted. If you have all of your senses intact and are healthy, be grateful, consider yourself lucky. There are so many out there who have less than you and who have to work hard at the little things every day. Help anyone when you see the opportunity and try to set an example of how others should be treated.