Research source

VI. Other forms of involuntary indications; "involuntary whispering;" the subconscious 334

Date of account: Published 1900
Source: Fact and Fable in Psychology
Reference: Fact and Fable in Psychology · selected passage 172
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

This leads naturally to the consideration of the power of the imagination in the blind

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Source passage

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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.

Historical context

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Modern context

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