Electric sheep
May. 3rd, 2012 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI think it's interesting that one of the recipients of a retinal implant to restore vision is quoted as saying "I have even dreamt in very vivid colour for the first time in 25 years so a part of my brain which had gone to sleep has woken up!"
The implants are designed for people with a degenerative condition (although the RNIB says complete blindness is uncommon), but nothing is said about whether this person was blind at the time of getting this implant -- but it doesn't sound ilke e could have had a lot of sight, if being "able to detect light and distinguish the outlines of certain objects" are encouraging results of the operation. The condition seems to be indicated by lack of night vision or peripheral vision; nothing much is said about losing color vision although the disease can affect the cones (which perceive color) as well as the rods (which give us night and low-light vision). It makes sense that a loss of color vision could lead to dreaming in black and white, but I can't assume that's what happened in this person's case. Some people with no sight at all do "see" in their dreams, and just as the brain coughs up old memories when its dreaming, it can use old sensory data even if it's no longer getting new stuff of that sort.
People are strangely fascinated by whether dreams are in color. Google brings up tons of results to people asking whether we dream in color, and the results are contradictory: "Yes." "Sometimes." "Some people do." "Everybody does." Even "Dreams are black-and-white during the period of black-and-white films and TV in the first half of the twentieth century, but before and after that, dreams are in color." My favorite is "even if the media did not change our actual dreams, they were nonetheless a principal cause of our change in opinion about our dreams."
Of course all these opinions presume sightedness. The internet is also full of people asking the question "What do blind people dream about?" It seems ludicrous to me, but then I suppose I don't have quite the vision chauvinism as a fully-sighted person. The answer is, as I suspected, the same things as everyone else -- their daily lives, their memories, and so on. It seems people who had some sight beyond the age of seven do experience visual imagery in dreams.
Of most personal interest to me was that while less than one percent of sighted participants surveyed in two previous studies reported experiencing gustatory, olfactory, or tactual sensations in dreams, all but three of the blind participants in this study reported experiencing them. I was surprised that the number is so low in fully sighted people -- either the study is flawed somehow or visual chauvinism is even stronger than I think! -- because my dreams definitely use those other senses.
It's because of this connection between people's waking and dreaming thoughts and experiences that I was surprises eomeone whose vision was restored to the extent that e could discern light from shadow and the edges of objects (things that are among the easiest to see and thus common among people with low vision) was suddenly dreaming in color (which leads me to assume e was dreaming in black-and-white previously, rather than no visual images at all -- both because I'd have expected em to put it differently otherwise (the comparison would've been "now I can see objects [where before I couldn't]" rather than "now I can see color [where before I couldn't]") and because es degenerative condition probaby gave em sight for long enough to fall into the category that the science tells me would leave a person with visual dreams).
But most of all, on reading this person's reaction to es new sight, was em saying so matter-of-factly, that the direct and obvious and simple cause of es newly-colorful dreams, was "a part of my brain which had gone to sleep has woken up!" I smiled because I recognize this: it was once explained to me (by someone who was supposed to teach me how to cross roads without getting hit by cars, rather than any sort of medical professional; they never talked to me like a person) that perhaps that's what happened to my own brain. Nothing changed in my eyes or optic nerves or visual cortex (as far as medical science (ptooi!) knows anyway) between my being born blind and my suddenly being able to see in a way that was obvious to my parents and the specialists) so it's like my brain woke up and realized it could make sense of these (no doubt extremely low-bandwidth) signals it was getting.
The metaphor of waking up is a hopeful one, much better than the usual ones about non-fuctional parts of the brain being "dead." It's nice to think that all the shoddy parts of my brain (even though I know better) are still there, perfectly fine, just slumbering and waiting to wake up and spring into action, like King Arthur or something.
The implants are designed for people with a degenerative condition (although the RNIB says complete blindness is uncommon), but nothing is said about whether this person was blind at the time of getting this implant -- but it doesn't sound ilke e could have had a lot of sight, if being "able to detect light and distinguish the outlines of certain objects" are encouraging results of the operation. The condition seems to be indicated by lack of night vision or peripheral vision; nothing much is said about losing color vision although the disease can affect the cones (which perceive color) as well as the rods (which give us night and low-light vision). It makes sense that a loss of color vision could lead to dreaming in black and white, but I can't assume that's what happened in this person's case. Some people with no sight at all do "see" in their dreams, and just as the brain coughs up old memories when its dreaming, it can use old sensory data even if it's no longer getting new stuff of that sort.
People are strangely fascinated by whether dreams are in color. Google brings up tons of results to people asking whether we dream in color, and the results are contradictory: "Yes." "Sometimes." "Some people do." "Everybody does." Even "Dreams are black-and-white during the period of black-and-white films and TV in the first half of the twentieth century, but before and after that, dreams are in color." My favorite is "even if the media did not change our actual dreams, they were nonetheless a principal cause of our change in opinion about our dreams."
Of course all these opinions presume sightedness. The internet is also full of people asking the question "What do blind people dream about?" It seems ludicrous to me, but then I suppose I don't have quite the vision chauvinism as a fully-sighted person. The answer is, as I suspected, the same things as everyone else -- their daily lives, their memories, and so on. It seems people who had some sight beyond the age of seven do experience visual imagery in dreams.
Of most personal interest to me was that while less than one percent of sighted participants surveyed in two previous studies reported experiencing gustatory, olfactory, or tactual sensations in dreams, all but three of the blind participants in this study reported experiencing them. I was surprised that the number is so low in fully sighted people -- either the study is flawed somehow or visual chauvinism is even stronger than I think! -- because my dreams definitely use those other senses.
It's because of this connection between people's waking and dreaming thoughts and experiences that I was surprises eomeone whose vision was restored to the extent that e could discern light from shadow and the edges of objects (things that are among the easiest to see and thus common among people with low vision) was suddenly dreaming in color (which leads me to assume e was dreaming in black-and-white previously, rather than no visual images at all -- both because I'd have expected em to put it differently otherwise (the comparison would've been "now I can see objects [where before I couldn't]" rather than "now I can see color [where before I couldn't]") and because es degenerative condition probaby gave em sight for long enough to fall into the category that the science tells me would leave a person with visual dreams).
But most of all, on reading this person's reaction to es new sight, was em saying so matter-of-factly, that the direct and obvious and simple cause of es newly-colorful dreams, was "a part of my brain which had gone to sleep has woken up!" I smiled because I recognize this: it was once explained to me (by someone who was supposed to teach me how to cross roads without getting hit by cars, rather than any sort of medical professional; they never talked to me like a person) that perhaps that's what happened to my own brain. Nothing changed in my eyes or optic nerves or visual cortex (as far as medical science (ptooi!) knows anyway) between my being born blind and my suddenly being able to see in a way that was obvious to my parents and the specialists) so it's like my brain woke up and realized it could make sense of these (no doubt extremely low-bandwidth) signals it was getting.
The metaphor of waking up is a hopeful one, much better than the usual ones about non-fuctional parts of the brain being "dead." It's nice to think that all the shoddy parts of my brain (even though I know better) are still there, perfectly fine, just slumbering and waiting to wake up and spring into action, like King Arthur or something.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-03 05:20 pm (UTC)I dream in sets or tones. Like some dreams are in greyscale with color only on what I'm looking at. Some are in themes -- I dreamed a highway in shades of blue, white, and silver, like the colors of a computer. I've dreamed a barn scene in the sort of muted brown and grey tones you get at night, even though there was a light shining on the barn. But there is a heavy vision bias; while I don't see everything -- I dream primarily in "knowledge" rather than any of the recognized senses -- I definitely have more visual information that anything else, and I tend to get visual information for every dream.
I'm more likely to know what something smells like than to actually smell it; but then, I also have allergies pretty severely. Hearing is the sense that shows up the second-most-often, and it's around pretty regularly. Unlike with color, it is typically the same kind of way I hear things when awake. Touch is also more common, and sometimes leaves impressions that stick around for a minute or so after I wake, but it is usually limited to nightmares and not present in good dreams. Taste is most likely a knowledge of how something tastes rather than an actual taste; but there is a particular taste associated with nightmares, and I wake up with it even if I don't experience it in-dream.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 08:59 pm (UTC)I think I get this too, though I had never really articulated it until I read your comment. I guess this too might be the influence of media? Movies and TV shows do tend to have "themes" too (I remember my dear husband complaining that a movie we saw was all in blues when he thought it should have been reds and oranges).
I'm more likely to know what something smells like than to actually smell it
This is spot-on too; I think it must be common to, as you say, dream in knowledge: I have heard (and said!) so many times things like "and then your mother turned up, but it didn't look anything like your mother, but I knew it was her! somehow..." I dream the knowledge of conversations without actually being able to remember hearing or speaking any words. (I do hear other sounds in dreams, but I rarely hear words, I just sort of absorb them by telepathy or something.)
It's so interesting to hear about how other people are similar or different. Thank you for contributing to this :)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-05 08:53 pm (UTC)And plot. Plot is more important in my dreams then sensory data.
I didn't realise this might be unusual.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 08:59 pm (UTC)That is a really interesting point, actually. I'm glad you mentioned it.