How do the deaf or blind...?

Question

Think? This is coming from a very popular question I saw earlier, which asked if the blind can dream.

Seriously. When a person with no handicap thinks, they usually imagine the sight, sound, feel and so on of what they are thinking about, right? Well, imagine if you're blind. Do you just think about the sound and feel? If you're deaf, do you only see what you're thinking about?

I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Imagine deaf AND blind people, such as Helen Keller. Can you imagine only knowing something by its feel, smell and taste?

What do you think? You can give me just your opinion or your educated guess. Or if you ARE blind or deaf, or know someone who is, your input would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I think it is also down to whether the person has ever been able to see or hear as obviously that would effect this.... but I think if you never have you would adapt and often it is believed that when you loose one sense your others are heightened, I watched a film once (cant recall the film) where the person explained color to a blind person by giving them things to feel for example a piece of ice to show what blue is like...... I think everyone will experience something different and the mind is more powerful than we give it credit and probably comes up with new ways to understand things that we would automatically understand purely from sight of sound if that makes sense, that's what I think anyway :-)

Answer 2

To me, the other senses will provide a more textured view of the world than they normally would.

For example, if one is blind, smell and touch sensing will become more acute and concentrated.

The ones who lack one or more senses will compensate for that loss by applying more brain processing and understanding based on the other senses.