Last time we answered the question: How Do Blind People Know When To Stop Wiping?. Well, because we know you loved, here are 12 more questions all of us wanted to ask a blind person, but were too afraid to ask.
All answers to this article are answered by Reddit user thetj87, who has been blind since age 11 months, in a AMA session.
12. Question: Do you dream with sight? (the article continues after the ad)
Answer: This is probably the question I get most frequently. I dream in the same way I experience things in my waking life, using sound and touch primarily to create images which I assume my brain proccesses in similar ways to how yours processes images.
11. Question: Do you understand what colors are?
Answer: Personally i usually associate colors with concepts. Sure this is very simplistic but it helps–ie. red= fire, blue= water, white= snow, brown=mud. It gives me some ground to work from. Of course the comparison of brown to mud was challenging due to also knowing i have Brown hair, and would like to think my hair isn’t similar to mud.
10. Question: Can you cry?
Answer: I can cry but can’t create proper tears. But my eyes go through the motins as if they were going to.
9. Question: How do you recognize people? Are you able to recognize voices well, or do the people you encounter infrequently need to remind you of who they are when you meet them?
Answer: This is something I wish I were better at. I can identify voices of people I see pretty regularly, or people with distinct voices, but there are other blind people who have the auditory version of photographic memory (recorder memory?) and can hear a person once and remember them, so it totally depends — you should say hi, worst case she asks you to remind her who you are, I suspect she’d appreciate the gesture all the same.
8. Question: How do you read on computer?
Answer: I use a program called Jaws for windows which reads the text on screen and have the keyboard memorized. Jaws is one form of screen reading software.
7. Question: Have you ever tried any hallucinogens? Just wondering what this would be like without sight.
Answer: As with most things of this sort, marijuana has different impacts on different people, I’ve not really messed with much in the way of drugs, but have smoked marijuana and once had a really interesting super-sensory experience where I could hear and feel every detail of everything around me. I could hear the people around me as they flexed their hands, arms, legs what ever, the fabric of their clothes as they moved, what every was in their pockets as it crinkled. I got on a train and could feel every turn in slow motion. it was an absolutely insane and sort of frightening experience. There were moments I talked to people and could hear things that weren’t really audible — like how nervous, angry, upset, what ever they were.
6. Question: Do you ever find people are more condescending to you as a result of your condition?
Answer: Yes this is something I experience pretty frequently. Often I find that people expect me to have much more limited capabilities, due to my blindness. Freequently if I’m out at a restaurant the server will ask who ever i’m with what i would like rather then asking me as somehow blindness means I will be unable to communicate to them my desire.
5. Question: Could you fall sleep with your eyes open?
Answer: One of the coolest parts of being blind has been the ability to fall asleep in meetings or during classes and it be impossible for others to know as I don’t close my eyes as I have no need to.
4. Question: Are your prostheses functional or just cosmetic?
Answer: Prosthetics are purely cosmetic.
3. Question: Can you tell if girls/guys are pretty/handsome?
Answer: For atractiveness I suppose the dynamic iin this regard is a bit different. I can make rough estimations but only learn if I find the person atractive as the relationship evolves.
2. Question: How do you experience sunlight? Do you enjoy it, and/or crave it?
1. Question: What’s the hardest part about being blind?
Answer: Most likely getting people to move beyond their own preconseived nottions and expectations of a blind person.
If you like what you read, then you will definitely love this one: How Do Blind People Know When To Stop Wiping?
Photo: John-Mark Smith / Pexels, Wikimedia
Photoshop: I’m A Useless Info Junkie
Sources: AMA: I Am A Totally Blind Redditer
