6 posts shown.
Emily Hayes said:That’s a really interesting perspective.
I mean, I definitely get spooked by a sudden flash of light when I’m sitting in the dark, much like how I'd jump at a sudden loud noise.
Maybe saying I'm afraid of the dark is a bit of an exaggeration, but total darkness makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. It’s that sense of helplessness—I have nothing to lean on, I can't find my bearings, and I just feel completely lost.
So, I was really just trying to find something that felt like the equivalent of that sensation for you, since you're blind.
I’m guessing that constant, disorienting noise is to you what a bright light shoved in my eyes would be to me.
But if that's the case, what does "darkness" actually feel like to you?
The idea regarding noise might actually hold some weight. To be honest, when I find myself in a place that's far too loud, I can feel myself becoming completely disoriented in an instant—it's as if that overwhelming noise acts like a sonic curtain, masking everything I rely on to understand the space around me. Just as you described how intense light can momentarily blind you, excessive noise can effectively deafen my sense of direction. While I'm walking, I rely on listening to perceive obstacles, open spaces, or even just to sense which direction someone is approaching from...
Emily Hayes said:Thank you so much for clarifying that. I've always been curious about how blind people actually experience the world around them.
You described it so beautifully. 🙂
Quick question: Since most people are terrified of the dark, what is it that scares you? Is it silence?
🙂 Oh, hell no. It’s actually quite the opposite... What truly unnerves me is an unexpected sound. Almost every single time there's a sudden crack of thunder nearby, I jump out of my skin. Most people get that visual warning—you know, the flash of light—but for me, it's just this sudden, violent boom hitting my ears without any notice... It's much the same when I get lost in my own thoughts and fail to realize someone has walked up behind me—and then they suddenly speak right next to my ear. And honestly, there's more to it: snakes, bugs, the unpredictable nature of a thunderstorm... all those little things that could turn dangerous in an instant.
mistyfox812 said:Honestly, I don't get how someone who's blind is supposed to read a forum post all by themselves.
Right. Well, the reality is that we rely on screen readers and speech synthesis software—tools that allow us to process text on the screen and handle just about anything else a computer can throw at us. I’m merely an average user myself, but I know plenty of blind professionals out there who excel in programming, web design, and other technical fields...
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
Look, I’m just going to attempt to clear up a few of the lingering uncertainties that have surfaced in your posts—though I can't promise to settle everything...
I find myself operating under the assumption that if you were to ask even a blind man for his perspective on this particular mess, he’d likely offer you something entirely different from what the rest of you are peddling...
I lost my sight during my junior year of college—it’s hard to claim any real authority when I talk about how I perceived color back then. A few years after that, I developed this intense obsession with red; it’s the shade that has lingered most stubbornly in my mind, likely because of its sheer aggression, though there was also one specific scene from that time where red just seemed to swallow everything else whole. Over the years, though, that clarity has faded... it’s become a memory of a memory. Now, I find myself merely remembering the fact that I once remembered that red...
There was a certain stretch of my life where I found myself inexplicably drawn to pink—a phase that felt almost overwhelming at times—but then, eventually, the pendulum swung toward purple, and I suppose I’ve stayed there ever since... It remains a favorite of mine, even now.
Everything I claim to know about color theory is nothing more than dry, academic abstraction—warm versus cold, vibrant versus pastel, light versus dark—and frankly, none of those textbook definitions have done much to help me actually connect with them. Still, I suppose there was a certain necessity to forming these mental concepts, even back in my early childhood... a need to categorize the world just to make sense of it. Ultimately, all I’m left with is my own imagination, and my perception of color remains something entirely internal, existing only within the confines of my own mind. For instance, while the textbooks insist that purple is a cool tone, to me, it possesses this inexplicable warmth. It isn't the searing heat you get from a red, of course, but there is a certain glow to it... a comfort. Even if my understanding of the spectrum is wildly detached from reality, I find this subjective version far more interesting—though, I highly doubt I would be able to identify a single actual color if I were suddenly granted sight...
There have been various attempts to stage color through touch, sound, or even scent—an interesting concept, I suppose—but I can’t help but feel that any such experience would be entirely beholden to the individual's subjective perception of those colors... which makes the whole endeavor somewhat precarious. In my own experience, I’ve found that two people can encounter the exact same aroma yet walk away with vastly different impressions and descriptions. If we cannot even agree on the essence of a single scent, how could we ever hope to standardize the "feeling" of a hue? Of course, these sensory experiments aren't entirely without merit—they might offer a fleeting hint or a vague approximation—but they will never truly capture the soul of color... not in any meaningful way.
As someone living with blindness, I find myself constantly confronted by this recurring question regarding color dreams—specifically, how exactly one "sees" in them. There is always this palpable sense of anticipation in the way people ask, an eagerness for me to recount some vivid, Technicolor odyssey that simply doesn't exist... or at least, isn't interesting to me. I don't dream in color, nor do I dream through sight, even though my sleeping mind is perfectly capable of conjuring things that would be physically impossible in reality. For instance, in a dream, I might possess an absolute certainty that an object is positioned right in front of me without ever having touched it—or I’ll know with total clarity that a specific person is standing in the room, even if I haven't heard their voice. I don't "see" them, per se; it is more of a profound, intuitive awareness of their presence... Naturally, those who have spent their lives seeing likely experience a fundamentally different dreamscape—one fueled by their ability to recall colors and the visual textures they've internalized over a lifetime...
I have to admit, the whole concept of regression sounded rather intriguing when it was first brought up—it certainly piqued my interest—but my actual understanding of the mechanics behind it is admittedly thin. I wouldn’t dream of venturing too deep into that particular rabbit hole without more substance... it feels a bit premature to weigh in just yet.
"A world of darkness"... it’s a phrase people toss around all the time, isn't it? And frankly, I find it difficult to wrap my head around the logic behind it. I don't feel like I'm inhabiting some alternate dimension—and believe me, the people I deal with every day, the ones who actually know me, certainly don't perceive me as someone living in some sort of gloomy, shadow-filled void. I constantly get these little comments thrown my way—things like, "Why haven't you turned on the light?" or "Can you grab me that blue shirt?"—as if there were some visual struggle occurring. And since we’re on the subject of darkness—though I realize how difficult this might be for some to grasp—I don't actually know what darkness *is*. Not in the sense we discussed regarding colors, anyway. Because I don't perceive light, the concept of darkness simply doesn't exist for me. This whole idea of "living in the dark" is fundamentally flawed from my perspective; I recently found myself in a rather tedious debate with someone trying to argue the opposite point. They were attempting to convince me that my reality consists entirely of darkness, and that I just somehow fail to recognize it. It was quite absurd... and utterly unconvincing. I tried explaining it to them, much as I have to others, that the visual faculty simply isn't part of my biology. It’s as if I belong to a species that was never equipped with sight to begin with. Just as one cannot see out of their knee or their back because there are no visual receptors there to process an image, I simply do not "see" through eyes...
I’m not entirely sure if this will actually clear things up for any of you—though I certainly tried my best to lay it all out...