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Cycling Paralympians Lora and Neil Fachie share how being blind has affected their dreams and what they dream about. We also explore scientific insights from leading psychologists to find out how blind people can see in their dreams.
6 Min Read
Last Modified 26 September 2024 First Added 21 May 2021
Blind people’s dreams do differentiate from those with sight. Depending on the severity and level of sight, blind people’s dream scenarios and imagery can vary.
Despite having reduced visual content while dreaming, other elements including sound, touch, taste, and smell are enhanced in their dreams. Blind people experience more dreams involving movement and travel.
Read on and learn more about Paralympians and why how being blind has affected their sleep, whether blind people have nightmares and how their senses are heightened in comparison to sighted people.
Dr Alex Dimitriu, founder at Menlo Park Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine explains more about how blind people dream for us:
“There are two types of blindness – one: congenital – from birth, and the other, acquired over time. People who become blind later in life did have vision at some point, so they will remember the look of things in the real world. People born with congenital blindness have never seen the world visually, but that does not mean their imagination and ability to understand descriptions would limit them from still being able to “see” in the mind’s eye. Much the same way most of us can imagine something we have never seen before, blind people can as well. This process continues in the dream state, even for the congenitally blind.”
Paralympic cyclists, Lora Fachie and Neil Fachie share their experiences about how being blind has affected their dreams.
Lora Fachie is a visually impaired tandem cyclist, and her family all share the same hereditary condition but lost their sight at different points in their lives. Lora shared her experience of dreaming:
“I was very young when I lost my sight, and it completely deteriorated to sort of nothing which is what I’ve got now, so I don’t see colour or anything in my dreams – it’s usually like my day-to-day life. My middle brother, he’s never really had any sight, so he’s the same – he doesn’t see in his dreams.”
“However, my mum and my eldest brother were both a little bit older, so my mum was like 14 or 15 before she lost her sight, and my eldest brother was eight. They both for the majority of their life could see enough to read and write, and see colours and things. Even now, they still dream in colour, which I find fascinating. So, in their dreams, they can see.”
Neil Fachie is also a visually impaired cyclist with the ParalympicsGB, and having lost his sight later in life, his dreams have a different perspective to Lora’s:
“My sight has gradually deteriorated as I’ve got older, and I think my vision in my dreams is similar to when I was younger. Looking at Lora’s family, it’s possible that there is an age that you learn to dream, or that’s when your memories are from, but my vision is actually better in my dreams than it probably is in my current life, which is really interesting.”
Dreams can mimic both memories and everyday life – it’s almost like a narrative. In Lora’s dreams, her mind focuses on feelings a lot, or it’s like someone is telling a story narrating what’s happening in her dream – sometimes in her own voice. Whereas Neil’s dreams are a lot more visual.
Blind people do have nightmares and surprisingly may experience them more frequently than sighted people.
A study has shown that 25% of blind dreams experience are nightmares, while an estimated 6% of sighted people experience nightmares.
Lora says “One nightmare that I experience on a reoccurring basis – and I think it’s quite a common one – I dream my teeth are crumbling away in my mouth, and I’ll be sort of spitting my teeth out in my dream. So, when I wake up I have to check my teeth are all still there and intact!”
Blind people’s dream intensity differentiates from sighted people. During stressful times, blind people may not be able to achieve and remember certain memories in thier dreams. This domino effect may result, in blind people’s dreams may become more detached, disorganised, and chaotic.
Lora says “When I’m in a heavier training block, I struggle to go into a deep sleep, so I spend more time in that half-awake, half-asleep mode. And at that time, I do think my dreams seem more vivid”
Neil agrees with the level of restlessness affecting his dreams, saying “When you’re almost so tired from training that you actually can’t sleep, I find myself straddling the real world and the dream world a bit. I don’t necessarily think my dreams change, but I do think they get a bit weirder when I’m more tired, or coming up to a big event, and experiencing more stress. I think stress encourages less sleep, but also more vivid dreams, too.”
Katherine Hall, Sleep Psychologist at Somnus Therapy says:
“Sighted people often associate dreams with intense visual imagery. However, there does seem to be much more to experience with all of our other senses: smell, taste, sound and touch. Whilst the visual does certainly play a fundamental role, blind people more commonly experience their dreams through the other senses. The senses more heavily relied upon in their waking life seems to transfer over into their dreams.”
Lora’s emotions and feelings are the most vivid for her, and her dreams can be very tactile because in her day-to-day life her main senses are touch and hearing.
Because Neil’s dreams are very visual, his most heightened sense when dreaming is sight. He says: “I am very visual still in my dreams. The visual context also drives the kind of biological responses that you have in a dream because it’s so real like you wake up with your heart rate going!”
Dreams can vary widely from person to person, but overall, people who are blind, dream as much as anyone else. Even though the ways in which they dream can differ, the emotional response and content of dreams remain the same. If anything, the way in which blind people dream confirms that sight and experience are not linked and that lack of sight doesn’t make any experience less ‘real’.
Watch our interview with Lora and Neil on YouTube below:
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