Fact and Fable in Psychology

by Joseph Jastrow

IV

Returning to the general data regarding the dreams of the blind, the question that next suggests itself is whether and how, in cases where blindness ensued after a remembered period of vision, the pre-blindness period is distinguished from the post-blindness period in dream-imagery. It was noticed, for instance, that the blind and deaf young man mentioned above, though seeing in his dreams, never thus saw the shop in which he worked. It is easy to imagine that the more or less sudden loss of sight, the immersion into a strange and dark world, would for a time leave the individual living entirely upon the past. His remembered experiences are richer and more vivid (we are supposing his blindness to occur after childhood) than those he now has; he is learning a new language and translates everything back into the old. His dreams will naturally continue to be those of his seeing life. As his experiences in his new surroundings increase, and the memory of the old begins to fade, the tendency of recent impressions to arise in the automatism of dreaming will bring the events of the post-blindness period as factors into his dreams. I find in my list only seven who do not have such dreams; and in these the blindness has been on the average of only 2.8 years standing. The average age of "blinding" of the seven is fifteen years, making it probable that the adaptation to the new environment has here been a slow one, and that such dreams will occur later on. On the other hand, cases occur in which, after three, two, or even one year's blindness, when the persons so afflicted were young, events happening within that period have been dreamed of. Heermann cites a case of a man of seventy who never dreamed of the hospital in which he had been living for eighteen years, and to which he was brought shortly after his blindness. This and other cases suggest that the more mature and settled the brain-tissue, the more difficult is it to impress upon it new conditions sufficiently deeply to have them appear in the automatic life of dreams.

Whether there is a difference in the vividness, or any other characteristic which sight would lend, in the dreams of events before and after blindness, is a question to which I could obtain few intelligent and satisfactory answers; but, as far as they go, the tendency of these replies is to show that when blindness ensues close upon the critical period of five to seven years of age, the power of vivid dream-vision is more exclusively limited to the events of the years of full sight; and, as Heermann pointed out, this power is often subject to a comparatively early decay. Similarly, I find that those who lose their sight near the critical age are not nearly so apt to retain color in their dream-vision as those who become blind later on. The average age of "blinding" of twenty-four persons who have colored dream-vision, is 16.6 years, including one case in which blindness set in as early as the seventh year. All who see enough to see color, have colored dream-vision.

I also asked those who became blind in youth, or later, whether they were in the habit of giving imaginary faces to the persons they met after their blindness, and whether they ever saw such in their dreams. Some answered in very vague terms, but several undoubtedly make good use of this power, probably somewhat on the same basis as we imagine the appearance of eminent men of whom we have read or heard, but whose features we have never seen. When we remember how erroneous such impressions often are, we can understand how easily it may mislead the blind. Such imaginary faces and scenes also enter into their dreams, but to a less extent than into those of the sighted. Dr. Kitto[20] quotes a letter from a musician who lost his sight when eighteen years old, but who retains a very strong visualizing power both in waking life and in dreams. The mention of a famous man, of a friend, or of a scene, always carries with it a visual picture, complete and vivid. Moreover, these images of his friends are reported to change as the friends grow old; and he feels himself intellectually in no way different from the seeing.

This leads naturally to the consideration of the power of the imagination in the blind. It is not difficult to understand that they are deprived of one powerful means of cultivating this faculty, that the eye is in one sense the organ of the ideal. Their knowledge is more realistic and tangible, and so their dreams often, though by no means always, lack all poetical characteristics, and are very commonplace. Ghosts, elves, fairies, monsters, and all the host of strange romance that commonly people dreams, are not nearly so well represented as in the dreams of the sighted. What is almost typical in the dreams of the latter is unusual in the dreams of the blind, especially of those early blind. Many observe that such dreams grow rare as they outgrow their youth,[21] which is probably true of the sighted. When the blind dream of ghosts they either hear them, and that usually not until they are close at hand, or they are actually touched by them. A blind man, describing a dream in which his friend appeared to him, said: "Then I dreamt that he tried to frighten me, and make believe he was a ghost, by pushing me down sideways," etc. By some the ghost is heard only; it has a rough voice, and its bones rattle; or it pursues the victim, humming and groaning as it runs.

Contrary to the opinions of some writers, I find hearing, and not the group of tactual-motor sensations, to be the chief sense with the blind, both in waking and in dreams. That hearing owes very much of this supremacy to its being the vehicle of conversation, goes without saying. Many of the blind dream almost exclusively in this sense, and it is quite generally spoken of as the most important. Even those who see a little, often regard hearing as their most useful sense; those who see well enough to see color, almost invariably claim for their partial sight an importance exceeding that of hearing. Next in importance to hearing is the group of sensations accompanying motion. An important item in the dreams of the sighted is furnished by this complex of sensations, and the same is true of the blind; almost all remember such dreams, and some make this their most important avenue of sensation. Yet such a purely artificial movement as reading the raised type with the finger almost never occurs in dreams. The boys dream of playing, running, jumping, and so on; the men of broom-making, piano-tuning, teaching, and similar work; the girls of sewing, fancy work, household work, and the like.

There is often ascribed to the blind a somewhat mystical sense, by which they can tell the presence and even the nature of objects, and can feel their way. As far as such a power exists, it depends upon a complex group of sensations, and includes the cultivation of the irradiation sense, which we all possess. It is not at all difficult to tell whether a large object is within a few inches of the hand, by the fact that it modifies the air currents and heat radiations reaching the hand. This is especially the case if the temperature of the object be somewhat different from that of the room, or if it be an object like metal, which rapidly exchanges its heat. In sunlight the shadows of stones and posts can be thus detected; and the illumination of a room, both as to its source and extent, can be judged. This sense the blind carefully, though often unconsciously, cultivate, and I have heard it spoken of by them as "facial perception," because the face seems to be most sensitive to this kind of change. Many mention that the power fails them under the influence of a headache or similar nervousness. The question whether the position of a door, whether opened or closed, could be told at a distance was variously answered; about half testified that they could do so mainly by the aid of this facial perception. This enters in a vague way into their dreams, but seldom plays an important rôle.

The stories attributing to the blind rather wonderful notions of color have, on careful examination, been readily explained by natural means; the use of words referring to color is often merely verbal (of this both Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller furnish many excellent examples), while the knowledge of the colors of special objects is obtained by inference, based upon texture, appropriateness, and similar characteristics. The analogies between color and sound have been frequently described within recent years. Mr. Galton has recorded many cases in which the sounds of the vowels, of words, of musical notes, and the like, immediately summon to the mental eye an appropriate color, often with a peculiar outline and shading. One person could actually read sounds out of a wall-paper pattern, or write the sounds in the name Francis Galton in colors. It seemed possible that the blind might obtain or receive some dim notions of color by a similar process; and Dr. Kitto and the blind teacher, Friedrich Scherer, mention that such is the case, though to a very slight extent. The latter calls musical instruments the bridge across which color comes to him. (He became blind when two years old.) The flute is his symbol of green, the swelling organ tones of blue. The trumpet is red, the hunter's horn dark green and violet, a general confusion of tones is gray, while pink and crimson are associated with the feeling of velvet. In my list occurs the record of a young man twenty years old, and blind for three years. He saw colors on hearing certain sounds soon after his blindness, and claims that he is thus able to keep alive his notions of color. To him an alto voice is gray; a soprano, white; a tenor, yellow; a bass, black. My own voice suggested a dark background. A few words are also colored to him; the sound of Smith seems yellow. These analogies, however, are fanciful and rare. They belong to a region of mental phenomena, of great complexity, in which associations and idiosyncracies have free play, and seem as little capable of definite explanation as much of the stuff that dreams are made of.

A brief selection of instances from the collection of dreams and parts of dreams which these blind people have put at my command, may serve to reinforce the several factors of the dream-life of the blind which have been commented upon. Many of the dreams present no special differentiation from those of the seeing, but the most carefully recorded ones usually reveal some traces of a defective or peculiar apperception. A blind boy with more than usual imagination dreamed that he was in a battle in which Alexander the Great put the Gauls to flight; he heard the thunder of the cannon, but saw no flash. A young man dreamed that his mother was dead; this he knew by the cold touch of her body. He next heard the chanting of the Mass at her funeral. This young man at times improvises airs in his dreams. A partially-sighted girl dreams repeatedly of a wide river, and is afraid of being dashed across it, while anxious to secure the flowers on the opposite bank, which she dimly sees. A boy dreamed of being picked up by some mysterious agency, and then suddenly allowed to fall from a tremendous height. Here he awoke, and found his head at the foot of the bed. Another dreamed of the Judgment Day, mainly in terms of hearing. He was drawn to heaven by a rope, clinging to a pole used for exercising; he heard the trumpets sounding, and the voices singing, and so on. One dreamed that he was on a steamboat which suddenly sank, whereupon he quietly walked ashore. Another, that his father saw some wild people in the water, and swam out and rescued them; another, of a large conflagration, of which he saw nothing, but was constantly receiving reports from the bystanders. A girl dreamed that she was sent by her aunt to get a loaf of bread from the cellar, and was cautioned not to step too far down in the cellar, because there was water there; upon arriving at the dangerous place she stood still, and called for her aunt. Another dreamed of chivalry, as the result of reading "Ivanhoe;" another of visiting Lincoln and being much impressed with the strangeness of the place; another of her examination in physics—she placed a piece of glass on her finger, and showed its centre of gravity, when the glass fell and broke with a crash; on another occasion she dreamed that she was sick, went to the doctor, and recovered her full sight, and things looked strange and unfamiliar when compared with the knowledge she had derived from touch.