In 2014, Danish scientists published the findings of a study concerning dreaming and blind People.
The aim of the study was the evaluation of the dreaming contents of people who were blind from birth (11 study participants) resp. of people who went blind during life (14 participants) as well as of a control group of seeing people (25 participants). Age and sex of the control group complied with the test Group.
By means of a questionnaire different aspects of dreams have been collected for four weeks. Different impressions resp. the content of the dreams were recorded with different questions, like:
Sensorial impression:
“Have you seen, smelled, tasted something? Did you sense any pain? If you saw something, was it in color?”
Emotional content:
“Have you been sad or angry? Were you scared?”
Thematic content:
“Have you been interacting with someone? Was the dream realistic or bizarre?” A further question clarified whether it was a nightmare or not.
The emotional resp. thematic content as well as dreams concerning success/failure or social interactions of blind and seeing people were evenly distributed to the greatest possible extent.
In comparison to the control group, the share of visual dreams was significantly lower in the group of blind people. Here, the moment and the duration of visual loss were playing an important role. No participant who was blind from birth reported about visual impressions but in particular about acoustic, tactile, gustatory and olfactory dream-components, whereas people who went blind later in their life especially had tactile dream-impressions. The later they went blind the more visual impressions they had. The share of nightmares was especially elevated in the group of people who are blind from birth. It is also remarkable that blind people generally have a poorer quality of sleep.
Unsurprising the conclusion of the scientists that the moment of becoming blind is playing in important role. Due to the fact that falling into a hole or losing the companion dog are common contents of nightmares from blind people it can be speculated that this group includes threatening experiences of everyday life into the dreams.