When it comes to real life and their dreams, blind individuals rely heavily on their four senses. Thus, blind people are likely to have stronger sensations of sound, touch, taste, and smell in their dreams than sighted people. In a study conducted on 15 blind adults in 1999 (via Healthline) it was reported that some blind people often dreamt of food or eating. They were also not as likely to have dreams about violet encounters but had more dreams about animals.
Because individuals who have been blind since birth do not have any formed visual memories, they will likely dream of blobs of color that float or flash. Poet and author Stephen Kuusisto was born blind and explained this to Insider, saying, "Let's say your dream is like a Martin Scorsese movie. A blind person's dream will be more like a Monet painting. It will have people in it and it will have places in it, but it's going to be abstract or impressionistic — less moored to a faithful, or photographic replication of what a visual person might see."
Kuusisto noted that he sees color and shapes in his dreams and disagrees with the notion that blind individuals can't have visual sensations in their dreams. However, in a video posted on YouTube, blind social media personality Tommy Edison, who, like Kuusisto, was born blind, says that he does not have any visual sensations in his dreams and that his dreams center on "smell, sound, taste, and touch."
