DISABILITY

DISABILITY
It’s always been troubling for me what goes on in the dreams one born blind. Constantly, I’ve wondered if even they can dream. I threw the question open on one of my social media platforms. And the replies were vague. All speaking in the concept of someone who had the ability to see. There’s a reason why something is called a “disability”. It is called so because the individual is very unable to do what seemingly other persons can. In this case, it involves sight.
If for example, I try to describe what a mangoose is, I can only describe as much as I can, but if you have never seen one before then you can not get what creature I’m describing. So it is with the blind, how can we expect a person who was born blind to be  able to visualise in their dreams what a human looks like, what the environment is like? It’s totally and nearly unachievable. These individuals may be aware there are two arms, two legs etc, but honestly they can’t imagine what really it is like. Additionally, they don’t even know colours, they can’t even see colours. So if you tell them the grass is green, do you think they can tell what a grass is? Or even what the colour green is?
Basically, this is can’t possibly work. But then, it is said that when you lose one sense, other senses become sharper. And that is very true in the case of an individual born blind. They can report feelings of touch, smell, taste etc. And as they spend time with you or in a particular place, their senses become sharpened and they can therefore tell when you are approaching or who touched them especially for persons whom they live with.
Also, when they stay in an environment and move around, they can get used to the position of objects in that place and you see them successfully wavering over them to go about their business. These individuals are usually very intelligent and determined persons. More often, you see them attending schools to join others in learning. And this should be greatly encouraged and supported.
The other group of blind persons tho, this includes persons who became blind after the age of 5. That implies that at a point they could see, but due to certain conditions, they lost their sight. This could be as a result of accident, severe illness, old age etc. This persons are likely to actually visualise in their dreams. Why? Because they already have a memory of what is or what was. They have seen before, seen humans, seen the sky etc. They very likely can be able to dream about this things although in reality, they can’t see.
I personally find this catergory depressing though. It hurts deeply when a privilege you enjoyed before is unwillingly taken away from you. Sometimes it’s better you never experienced it. Although there is hope for this ones depending on the cause, as some of them with treatments such as surgery can recover sight.