Dreaming in Individuals with Blindness

Dreams in blind individuals incorporate sensory modalities other than vision, such as sounds, touch, smells, and emotions, reflecting the dreamer's waking sensory experiences. The content and structure of these dreams differ from those of sighted people, often lacking visual imagery but featuring heightened auditory, tactile, and olfactory elements. This suggests that dreaming adapts to the sensory information available to the dreamer, providing insight into how the brain constructs dream experiences without visual input.

Study at a glance

Abstract

What is dreaming in blind individuals like? For years, this question has been attracting much attention in science. However, dreaming is still, to a large extent, an unknown phenomenon for researchers (1, 2). Previous studies show that dreams include different sensory modalities and experiences (3).