Blind people cannot dream.. OBE's Mind Trick??

[Killa Rican]

Early apologies for my butchering of the english language im not very good at writing my thoughts down but here it goes.

What really comes to me is if OBE's/Lucid dreams are really true experiences or tricks played by the Brain.I've been doing research about this and i was curious about people who were blind since birth. Fact is Blind people who never visualized anything in their entire life only have auditory dreams. Other then that its pure darkness. Of course in some cases if you get in an accident which makes you blind since the Age of 6 and it recalls the last memorys of your family. In your dreams they will forever look the same as you last saw them. In comparison to Out of body experiences being more then just lucid dreams or being a part of another realm it makes you wonder. How do you know this really isnt all in your head?

Dont get me wrong i've had plenty of OBE's myself and i sure as hell WANT to believe what im experiencing is real. That theirs more then just this physical. When i have Lucid dream i really feel like im in a different world. But knowing that blind people dont experience the same cant it be nothing more then just the Brain Creating your own world?

What are your opinions on this?

My Question on Yahoo Answers answered with:

"No, they wouldn't. Visual stimulus is necessary for the wiring of the brain centers that process and interpret vision. The way the brain works is to develop, early in life, a huge number of neural synapses (connection points between neurons that are used in cell-to-cell signalling). As you grow and learn, these synapses are pared away to make the brain function efficiently, and that's the central basis of long-term learning. However, if the brain or any part of it fails to get infromation from hard-wired inputs, then that part of the brain will atrophy (at best, fringe areas of a cortical region might be adopted by adjacent cortical regions for different processes). But the take-away message here is that the brain needs visual stimulus in order to devolp the cortical regions that process vision. In the use-it-or-lose-it sense, the brain will not waste energy building and maintaining processes that aren't used. The optical cortex would never know how to function as an optical cortex in a person born blind."

[CFTraveler]

Well, theoretically an OBE experience is your conscious awareness going out (or directly accessing) the etheric/energy continuum, and whatever you experience (or see/feel/hear) is mediated by your brain, who then interprets the information and gives it back to you in the way you're familiar with.  So if you can't see (or more specifically) have never seen, when you have an OBE what you experience will be different than what you or I will, who are sighted.
So I would think that if a person having an OBE or dream who is not sighted (and never has) won't 'see', but will process the information differently.
Anyway, I think I missed your point?

[Killa Rican]

Well, theoretically an OBE experience is your conscious awareness going out (or directly accessing) the etheric/energy continuum, and whatever you experience (or see/feel/hear) is mediated by your brain, who then interprets the information and gives it back to you in the way you're familiar with.  So if you can't see (or more specifically) have never seen, when you have an OBE what you experience will be different than what I will, who are sighted.
So I would think that if a person having an OBE or dream who is not sighted (and never has) won't 'see', but will process the information differently.
Anyway, I think I missed your point?

Well you pretty much hit the nail on the head. But for me what im trying to understand is If OBE's Are real actual experiences then it will dominate over the Physical. Over course being that a blind person cant see, it wont have any effect if his spiritual body transcends into the astral realm. Because of course those are his physical eyes. Im curious about this because when it comes to NDE's i never heard of any actual cases where i blind person could see outside his own body.

[zareste]

I've read about a blind person who had an OBE, fully visual. You're really wasting your time if you're looking for evidence of OBEs being fake

[Killa Rican]

I dont see them as fake. Like i said dont get me wrong. But i myself dont want to be deceived. All i want is the truth so i take a nuetral stand on this matter. It was out of curiousity that i looked up this information. -.-

[Fourthdimension]

i am fully sighted but i have had major problems with my astral eyes sometimes i am out my body but just dont know it coz i just feel tranquill lost in total blackness with all my thoughts racing around me and the feel of movemnt. so now i have learnt as soon as i get out i have to will my eyes open litrally just to see where i am and what i am doing.

i suppose what i am trying to say is if a blind person is just dreaming and has never used his/her eyes before then they will not assume they have this in there dreams so mabye they cant see cause there eyes are closed and they dont know how to open them or since the astral body is a replica of the physical mabye there eyes are damaged in that body as well

you see you said in a dream they cant see and dreams are considered as mere nonsense in most of society just as robert monroe states in the first chapter of his book out of body journeys so then why would they try to do anything but sleep and relax in there dream with out need on the other hand if a blind person learns to obe they have the will power and knowledge that they can see if it is soo and so will open there eyes.

also how do u percieve what you have never percieved how do u jump that hurled. we are made to belive and have in built teories and religons and do's and donts that are natured in us as a child so how do we break free of 40 , 60 , 80 years of in built idea's. how do you make a priest belive there is no god or an athesist that god is every where. how can you make anicent people belive the world is round or modern people that the world is flat. how do you convince a person about to die with absolute non belive in anything that there is no death. see without evidence to provide to them you cant and they ll not know where to start to do so . so how do you make a blind man see if he has never used his eyes? unless by accident he opens them in his dreams he never will.

the above paragraph i was trying to get my thoughts out but i just was having a problem of puttin in words the idea i had and i still have nt done it so am just gonna leave it like it is even if it does nt make sense. i have a problem trying to get ideas from my mind to paper cause sometimes there just undiscribale and only make sense to me.

lol

[nickspry]

When you say that people blind since birth only have auditory dreams, do you mean ordinary dreams or OBE's?  Because somebody can't see in an ordinary dream, it doesn't automatically follow that that they will be unable to see during an OBE which may very different from an ordinary dream.
Just out of interest, there are a few well documented cases of people who were blind since birth being able to see during near-death experiences.

[CFTraveler]

I dont see them as fake. Like i said dont get me wrong. But i myself dont want to be deceived. All i want is the truth so i take a nuetral stand on this matter. It was out of curiousity that i looked up this information. -.-

I'm still confused.  In what way would you be deceived?  Let's take a few examples- let's say that an OBE is a brain thing- or a mind thing.  Let's say that it's one of the ways the mind shows you your subconscious.  To see those aspects of yourself that you are barely aware of, and to get to know them better, and to actually communicate with them.  How would this qualify as 'being deceived'?
Suppose then (which is my belief, btw) that an OBE is something similar- something created by the mind (not by the brain) in which you not only become aware of what's going on in your subconscious, and also other people's unconscious states (the collective unconscious)? 

My point is, that both theories (personal mind vs. collective mind) are valuable in and of themselves.
So why the thought of being deceived?
It's perfectly ok to be neutral on the subject, because no one really knows what's really going on.

[Killa Rican]

When you say that people blind since birth only have auditory dreams, do you mean ordinary dreams or OBE's?  Because somebody can't see in an ordinary dream, it doesn't automatically follow that that they will be unable to see during an OBE which may very different from an ordinary dream.
Just out of interest, there are a few well documented cases of people who were blind since birth being able to see during near-death experiences.

Interesting enough i'll look up these storys ty .

I'm still confused.  In what way would you be deceived?  Let's take a few examples- let's say that an OBE is a brain thing- or a mind thing.  Let's say that it's one of the ways the mind shows you your subconscious.  To see those aspects of yourself that you are barely aware of, and to get to know them better, and to actually communicate with them.  How would this qualify as 'being deceived'?
Suppose then (which is my belief, btw) that an OBE is something similar- something created by the mind (not by the brain) in which you not only become aware of what's going on in your subconscious, and also other people's unconscious states (the collective unconscious)? 

My point is, that both theories (personal mind vs. collective mind) are valuable in and of themselves.
So why the thought of being deceived?
It's perfectly ok to be neutral on the subject, because no one really knows what's really going on.

My bad for the confusion -_-. If i can try to explain it better what im trying to get at is. If i were to Astral project inside my room. Their would be an astral replica. Some stuff out of place but either that it would be as real to me as the reality i am in itself. What i am experiencing i WANT to be real. Some skeptic would tell me otherwise with heresay "Evidence". OBE's and Lucid dreams are sort of linked. If a blind person were to project would they actually see the astral plane in their minds eye or do their physical eyes prevent them? Just like Nickspry pointed out with Near death experiences. When i said I dont want to be "Deceived" its me critical thinking putting myself in the blind persons shoes. "If i were born blind would i have the ability to project and see this new world?"

[Fourthdimension]

i ask myself the same question wether obe's are me accesing the astral plane or if instead of it been an external thing if it is some sort of internal mind play but either way my entire belief system is center around the fact that we do survive death because i can obe and access other realms without the physical body.

i could go on and on but i suppose we all gotta filter it down to the funementals which is..... you say you want it to be real but what is REAL? is real the perceptions that you have decided to belive because of what your 5 sense's tell you...if that is the case then are nt they just electrical impulse's interpretted by the brain? is real a meteralist or idealist's belief of reality?

so if reality and real are words just based on perception and you said you want it to be as real as the relaity you are in then how do you know the reality you are in is real or what happens if its mis interpretted by oneself.

real........uhm everybody has there own answer but to me wether science proves or not that obe's are nt real as in proven by evidence or disproven then it does not matter because it is real to me and as long as i can prove it to myself i do not need to prove it to anyone else or for anyone to prove it to me because i enjoy it and have faith that my choosen idea of real and how it fits in with obe's may have some truth in it. take care

[catmeow]

Haven't replied for ages on these forums, but saw this thread.  I haven't read every post (it's late and I'm off to bed).

The postulate that people who have been blind from birth do not dream visually may or may not be true, but they certainly have visual or "visual-like" NDE's.

Please read Kenneth Ring's excellent book MindSight in which he discusses documented cases of people who were blind from birth who experienced "visual" OBEs during NDE.  The visual experiences they had were detailed, microscopic and highly accurate, although it is unclear whether they actually "saw" as we do.  But they were able to "perceive" for instance, single blades of grass, as well as colours, shapes etc.  Sometimes their "vision" was described as being similar to sending out "feelers" in every single direction at the same time.  But some deponents could also describe and name colours.

http://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-Near-Death-Out-Body-Experiences/dp/0966963008

[luckilysane]

Perhaps vision is just a earth-being (living things that the general population knows about) sense. Maybe there is no sight, but perception of things on a different level? Better than all the human senses put together... If that makes sense. Just pondering.

Good post. Really raises some questions for me. I only seek the truth but how do you actually know what is, even with proof? What is proof? I'm not skeptical of OBEs or other "paranormal" experiences, I am just very curious about the bigger picture.

[catmeow]

First of all let me iterate that there are documented cases of people who had NDEs and despite being blind from birth, experienced a detailed "visual like" sense of their surroundings. In Kenneth Ring's book he documents cases where the subject desrcibed details which he perceived "visually" while NDE and which were subsequently verified.  However the "visual" sense of these blind people appears to be slightly different from the visual sense of normally sighted people. It is more of a "knowing" than "seeing bright colours". 

No 1 Theory

Perhaps vision is just a earth-being (living things that the general population knows about) sense. Maybe there is no sight, but perception of things on a different level? Better than all the human senses put together... If that makes sense. Just pondering.

Yes maybe. That seems to be how these blind-from-birth people experienced their surroundings.  Shame because i like shapes and colours!  But maybe this super sense is every bit as rich and rewarding as physical sight plus quite a bit more. We just can't comprehend it.

No 2 Theory

Well, theoretically an OBE experience is your conscious awareness going out (or directly accessing) the etheric/energy continuum, and whatever you experience (or see/feel/hear) is mediated by your brain, who then interprets the information and gives it back to you in the way you're familiar with.  So if you can't see (or more specifically) have never seen, when you have an OBE what you experience will be different than what I will, who are sighted.

Robert Bruce introduced the concept of "brain-download". In other words when we return from OBE the memory of the experience must be "down-loaded" to our physical brain if we are to actually remember the OBE at all. Hence what we remember must by definition be limited by the capabilities of our physical brain. If we were blind from birth than the visual processing parts of the brain would never have developed so our "physical" memory experience could not have any visual elements to it?

This No 2 theory might also explain why blind-from-birth NDErs often describe their "visual" experience as being like sending out an infinite number of "feelers" in all directions. That would be because their physical brain areas concerned with "feeling" are the only working areas available to interpret the visual NDE experience. So in other words the only way they can comprehend a visual NDE when back in a blind brain is by interpretng the experience using the langauge of "feeling",  since the "feeling" areas of the brain are functional whereas the "visual" areas are not.

Just a couple of thoughts!

[CFTraveler]

Catmeow, you just showed where I did a little bit of butchering of the english language myself.
I should have said "you or I, who are sighted".   

[zareste]

I think, in fact, everyone is just 'knowing' the objects are there in OBEs. (correct me if I'm wrong here) It seems like astral projection lets you interpret the underlying data of your environment (as opposed to interpreting data created by your brain), so people with sight would interpret the information more visually, if I'm correct

[CFTraveler]

Sounds correct to me.