Narrated by NILISHA MOHAPATRA - translation and adaptation "Aziris" - website
One cloudy evening, when the electricity in my house went out as a result of a thunderstorm, and my eyes had not yet had time to adapt to the darkness, I realized for the first time what it was like to exist with partial loss of vision. Navigating by sounds and tactile sensations, I gained a unique experience. Then I became interested in learning a little more about blind people and how they perceive the world around them.
This post is a summary of what I have learned. I have collected 13 facts that you probably did not know about blind people. And these 13 things will help you overcome the awkwardness of communicating with people who have visual impairments.
1. They may have a different, non-visual, form of perception of the world.
Visual impairment does not always mean complete loss. In fact, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 15.88% of people who have vision problems are completely blind. The remaining 84.12% have partial or residual vision and can perceive color, light, movement or even the shape of surrounding objects. They may be able to see objects that are blurry or distorted, or have blind spots on them. So, as you now see, many have reduced vision, but this does not mean that they are completely blind.
2. They are not ashamed of their existing visual impairments.
Many blind people perceive their blindness as a simple physical problem. And in no case do they perceive it as an obstacle to their personal happiness. They don't believe that "blindness" is a death sentence. This group of people is capable of happiness like no other. And the responsibility for perceiving them as such lies with us. So, the next time you find yourself thinking, “Oh, poor thing, he’s blind,” examine how committed you personally are to changing society’s perceptions of people with physical disabilities.
3. They don't always need overprotection.
Blind people are much better oriented in space and have a much better understanding of surrounding objects than it seems at first glance. They may only need help to get acquainted with a new area or master new devices. But visually impaired people are in no way dependent on others. I encourage you to approach all visually impaired people with this in mind - if they need help, trust that they will ask for it on their own.
4. They are offended by both hyperattention and judgment.
Many visually impaired people would like to be treated like normal people, rather than like people with physical disabilities. Unwanted and unnecessary help is something that can make them feel inadequate. For example, helping them cross the road and accompanying them to their destination if they just asked for directions, buying them groceries and counting money on their behalf, picking up what they dropped, carrying their shopping after them is considered an excess of kindness that many blind people consider humiliating.
Ask if they need help. And leave them alone if you hear “no” as an answer.
5. They are not hypersensitive and do not have heightened senses.
Mass culture depicts that if one of a person’s senses stops working, the others become sharper. This is not always true! Although blind people may rely more on other senses and have better memory and auditory responses, they may lack a sixth sense. However, there is evidence that shows that blind people use a process called "echolocation", which uses sound waves to determine the location and size of objects within a certain area. Dr Gavin Buckingham says: “They either snap their fingers or click their tongues to send sound waves towards objects. This skill is often associated with bats, which use echolocation to fly."
6. They are happy to talk with others in normal language.
You shouldn't be careful about using visually oriented effects when talking to them. They look, see, observe and even predict your movements! They react normally to such phenomena and may even be offended if you deliberately avoid them in your speech. Instead, simply allow them to be part of your experience as they make you part of theirs. After all, blindness is not a stigma.
7. They react and participate in the world around them just like any other normal person.
Yes. People with blindness enjoy exploring new places, going to music concerts, trying food at new restaurants, and even doing extreme sports like skydiving. They are as excited about the world around them as any other person. But some of them are quite shy and prefer to spend time in familiar surroundings. Others are more expressive and like to seek out new sensations.
8. They have dreams.
Their dreams are connected to everyday life - a rich mixture of sensory signals.
In a Danish study of 50 blind adults, 18% of blind participants (both congenitally blind and acquired) reported at least one nap, compared with 7% of sighted participants. Almost 30% of blind people reported smells they smelled during their sleep. Almost 70% reported tactile sensations and 86% reported auditory sensations. However, the emotions and themes of their dreams are known to be similar to those of sighted people.
9. They perceive colors in their own unique way
Some people with acquired blindness relate to colors in the same way as people with normal vision. For others who have not seen color with their own eyes, they relate to it through associations and the construction of various concepts, such as fire - yellow or sky - blue. They also associate it with forms of energy: blue is cold, white is frozen, red is hot. Sometimes they may only perceive bright colors, or they may take a long time to explain the difference between blue and black or brown, or white and pink.
However, colors have meaning for all people, and blind people understand them in their own way.
10. Blind people have more nightmares than sighted people.
This is the result of a mental impression or interpretation of stressful situations because blind people tend to experience more anxiety in everyday life than others. It is more difficult for them to avoid stressors, and therefore their nightmares are closely tied to reality - falling into a ditch, getting hit by a car, running into a tree or being chased. Dr. Amani Meadi, who has studied this phenomenon very closely, says that such nightmares do not affect the quality of life of blind people, but are a true indicator of the experience they have had.
11. Not all of them use a cane.
Because there are different degrees of visual impairment, some people may use white or red canes, the color of which indicates the degree of blindness. Many people choose to use guide dogs that are trained to help them cross curbs, doors, or crosswalks. They monitor the wearer's right shoulder for collision protection.
12. Many of them calmly and openly tell curious people about their situation.
You may not know how to deal with people who are blind, or you may want to understand them better. This is a great opportunity to ask them about their lives. The key here is curiosity, a desire to learn to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of visually impaired people. As I said earlier, many blind people do not consider themselves disabled, and can offer many great ideas if you just ask.
13. Their well-being depends on how you perceive them.
Psychologists say that success in life, the quality of education and the number of jobs for visually impaired people is directly proportional to the expectations that others place on them and the degree of positive attitude towards them. The more you believe in their abilities, the more confident they will feel. Self-esteem and self-confidence are partly built through social interactions, and it is important that people are exposed to positive experiences. Be that experience for them!
If you want a positive interaction, just remember that blindness is not a defect or stigma. It is simply a characteristic, like sight itself, as Helen Keller beautifully said about this situation: “I see, and that is why I am happy. What you call darkness is gold to me. I can see a world created by God, not by man.”
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Photo courtesy of the Foundation for Supporting the Deaf-Blind “Connection” Alexander Silyanov
Sculptor
The artist Alexander Silyanov knew about his diagnosis, felt that he was losing his sight, but did not fully believe that one day he would become completely blind. Usher syndrome, a genetic disease that first takes away hearing and then vision, manifests itself in patients with varying intensity. Silyanov lost his hearing as a child and became blind at the age of 48. He graduated from the Moscow Art and Industrial School and was the only deaf student in the group; the words of teachers and classmates had to be read by lips. Now Alexander Silyanov heads the charitable non-profit organization Usher Forum and creates sculptures. His last painting, painted before he went completely blind, is a self-portrait with a guide dog.
At the school, Alexander Silyanov studied sculpture and, having gone blind, changed his colors to bronze. Over eight years, he created 14 sculptures, and in the spring of this year Silyanov became a laureate of the international Philanthropist award. He has never seen his grandson Gleb, but his portrait resemblance to the bust made by his grandfather is impressive. The artist says that practicing sculpture gives him a feeling of independence from those around him, although even here he cannot do without the help of friends and acquaintances: they purchase materials and accompany the sculptor to the studio, where his works are cast in bronze.
Alexander learns all the news through his wife. The artist was unable to master a special computer: he had known dactylology since childhood, but Braille was difficult to learn. He used to have a guide dog, Irzhik, but he died several years ago - the artist always puts his sculptures in a place of honor at his exhibitions. Assistance dogs for deaf-blind people are as rare as deaf-blind people themselves. Having learned during a business trip to England that dogs there help the deaf-blind, Alexander asked the All-Russian Society of the Blind to give him a dog, which puzzled the management - animals trained to help blind people responded to words, not gestures. Silyanov convinced the dog handlers that he would teach the dog to recognize tactile commands, and his experience formed the basis of a new training methodology at the Balashikha Guide Dog Training Center.
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Sculpture of the guide dog Irzhik According to a census conducted in 2014 by the So-edinenie charitable foundation, there are now about 3,000 deaf-blind people living in Russia. Of these, a little more than a third have not seen or heard since birth, and those who do not see or hear anything at all are 5-7%. According to unofficial data, there are about 15 thousand people in Russia with two sensory impairments. Of the 85 regions, deaf-blind people were found in 76. This does not mean that they are not present in the rest: many parents of children with complex disabilities refuse to hang the terrible label of deaf-blindness on children with residual vision or hearing, so they ignore both the questionnaire and the help. And it is unknown how many deaf-blind people who have not yet been registered live in remote villages.
Of the 3,000 registered deaf-blind people, about 10% work. Of course, both minors and elderly people took part in the census, but 17% want to find a job. For many years, such disabled people were involved in mass serial production at the enterprises of the Society of the Blind. The blind have especially sensitive fingers and dexterous hands; they cope well with any type of mechanical work. But automation and robotization of production have replaced people in production. Wood carving, embroidery, bookbinding, shoe repair, creativity and computer work - texts, tables and translations - remain blind.
Writer
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Natalya Demyanenko “My name is Arno. I'm a poodle. Secretly, he’s very handsome: black, with a chic lion hairstyle. You would appreciate it, but, alas, we can’t expect this from our students. Vitalik and Tanya are people. I don't know what breed. But, in all likelihood, something quite rare. They don't hear or see. Vitalik - nothing at all. He almost never makes any noise with his voice. But he doesn’t swear so terribly. He wags his finger a little and that’s it. Tanya doesn’t see either, but she hears something. In any case, if you bark loudly, she will definitely understand. Relatives address her in a voice, albeit a very loud one. And if they need to tell Vitalik something, they draw it on his palm...”
With her almost autobiographical story “Communication Experience,” St. Petersburg resident Natalya Demyanenko took first place in the competition for deaf-blind writers. Authors, deprived of sight and hearing, from all over the country sent materials about how they perceive the world. Inspired by the victory, Natalya wrote an autobiographical story.
— I dream of going into big literature. Quite insolent, huh? But there’s no harm in dreaming. True, publishing houses have not yet fought for the honor of publishing me,” Natalya jokes.
Natalya’s profound damage to her vision and hearing was combined with problems with her musculoskeletal system. At two years old, Natalya stopped seeing, at 16 she had to sit in a wheelchair, and at 20 her hearing deteriorated sharply. The Internet saved us from a real information vacuum and complete isolation from the world. Blind people can now read news and communicate online using special displays that display text information in the form of dotted Braille symbols. Having mastered the computer, Natalya entered a distance learning university, and although she studied there for only two years, the editing skills she acquired were very useful - now Natalya is on the editorial board of the magazine for the deaf-blind, “Your Interlocutor.”
Natalya has no children, but she has a beloved and loving husband, Vlad. In Natalya's literary story, he is written under the name Vitalik. The name is the only discrepancy: Vlad is a totally deaf-blind person.
— I wrote to Vlad after stumbling upon his dating ad in a magazine for the blind. I was losing my hearing at the time and didn’t understand how to live further, so I decided to ask for advice. After two years of correspondence, we got married. When I was getting ready to get married, everyone dissuaded me, including my closest friends: she herself had a “bouquet of impossibilities,” and so did Vlad. She was as brave as she could, although in her heart she was afraid, of course. But I never regretted that I married him. He and I somehow complement each other. I have some remaining hearing and normal speech - I can convey something to my spouse from others or translate it. He is a physically strong person, but I can’t walk. But my husband takes her in his arms more often. Any woman would be jealous,” Natalya smiles.
Vladislav and Natalya have been living together in the Leningrad region for ten years. Natasha’s mother regularly visits them, but mostly the couple manage the household independently, taking care not only of each other, but also of two dogs and a cat. Natalya contacts her husband using a vibration call received under an individual rehabilitation program. Typically, such a bell is attached to the door, and a plastic box, which vibrates to inform a deaf-blind person about the arrival of guests, remains with the owner of the apartment, but the Demyanenkos use it differently: when Natasha needs help, she presses the button, and her husband receives a vibration signal.
“One spring, a cat climbed into the greenhouse, and Vlad didn’t notice that he had locked it there,” recalls Natalya. “We were looking for her, going crazy with excitement. I had to write to my parents. A day later they arrived and released the cat. Surely our dogs ran up to the greenhouse, but we didn’t see or hear the cat’s meow. That’s when we both realized that it was not always safe to live next to us.
For a long time, deaf-blindness was not recognized as a special type of disability, offering deaf-blind people only the benefits afforded to the blind. However, even a hearing-impaired blind person perceives the world differently than someone deprived of only sight, and accordingly needs special help.
There is almost no infrastructure for deaf-blind people in Russia. In the 23 regions where deaf-blind people were found during the census, there are a total of 34 leisure centers. These are clubs for communication, created, as a rule, on the basis of libraries for the blind. Another problem is the record-breaking low number of hours of typhology interpretation: in Russia, by law, a deaf-blind person has the right to only 40 hours of typhlo-sign language interpretation per month, despite the fact that one trip to the clinic often takes at least four hours. The professional standard for sign language interpreters was approved only in June of this year, but in many regions there are no such services yet. “My biggest headache lately is the lack of support and sign language translation services in our city,” says Natalya Demyanenko. - Nowadays it’s not so difficult to go somewhere - there are social taxis, low-panel buses. But the fact that there is no one to translate the necessary information, no one to accompany, makes life much more limited than it could be.”
Professor
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Alexander Suvorov “There are no special problems for the deaf-blind. We have the same problems as all other people,” says professor, doctor of psychological sciences Alexander Suvorov, joking: “But we may not have some other problems that you have.” For example, thank God, we don’t have soldiers. But healthy people have it. And none of us, unfortunately, will fly into space.”
Suvorov is confident that deaf-blindness only determines the specifics of ways to solve universal human problems. Many people know about Braille, which blind people use to read. How can you “hear” with your fingers? The main ways of communicating with deaf-blind people are dactylology (manual alphabet) and palm writing. Dactylology can be mastered in a couple of hours; writing on the palm of your hand is accessible to everyone without special training. But strangers are often afraid to touch deaf-blind people, and therefore the problem of lack of communication becomes especially acute.
The first deaf-blind person in the world to receive a bachelor's degree was the American writer and prominent public figure of the last century, Helen Keller, who became a symbol of the struggle for many people with disabilities. Helen Keller's birthday, June 27, has been celebrated as International Day of the Deaf-Blind since 1980. The “Soviet Helen Keller” was called the defectologist Olga Ivanovna Skorokhodova, who for a long time was the only deaf-blind researcher in the world.
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov lost his sight at the age of three, and his hearing at the age of nine, when speech had already formed and became the main means of communication. In 1977, after graduating from the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, he was hired as a junior researcher at the Research Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (now the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education). Suvorov, along with three other deaf-blind young people, received his higher education at the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University as part of the unique “Zagorsk experiment.” The Zagorsky (Sergiev Posad) orphanage for the deaf-blind is the only boarding school in the country where children deprived of sight, hearing and speech are raised.
Photo courtesy of the foundation for supporting the deaf-blind “Connection” Alena Kapustyan and Alexander Suvorov communicate at a visiting school for the community of families of deaf-blind children In 1994, Suvorov defended his candidate’s dissertation on autobiographical material on the topic “Self-development of the individual in the extreme situation of deaf-blindness,” and two years later he defended his doctoral dissertation on humanity as a factor in personal self-development. Now Alexander Suvorov is the only deaf-blind professor of psychology in the world.
— When we were abroad a quarter of a century ago, in the 90s, they asked us whether there were many deaf-blind people in the Soviet Union, and I answered that even if there was only one, that was already a lot. It would be better if such disabled people did not exist at all; this deaf-blindness is a very unpleasant thing. But since it exists, we must take into account that these people are in a very difficult situation. And they need versatile help,” says Suvorov.
Alexander Vasilyevich tells how at the American school for the blind, Perkins School, he met a deaf boy who had a severe form of cerebral palsy. The teenager had neither arms nor legs working, but he worked at the computer using a special device on his head in the shape of a beak, which can be used to press the keyboard buttons. “He may be the only one in the world who has such a device. And no one asked how many people were like that child,” says the professor. “It’s enough that there is one and he needs to master the computer.” And in Russia they are constantly asking: how much? And when they find out, they think: is one person worth the expense, wouldn’t it be easier to hand him over to some social institution? Why then were children taught and instilled with self-service skills so that staff in nursing homes would serve them? I am categorically against the statistical approach. Many, few - each unique. All over the world they say that society is only as big as its attitude towards people with disabilities. Everyone has the right to remain, to be human.”
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With this article I open a series of articles about the achievements of ordinary people who are among us. They are the same as us, they have the same desires and opportunities, they set the same goals for themselves.
Only to achieve them they need to make a little more effort, it’s a little more difficult to overcome themselves, it’s a little more difficult to prove their right to.
And when it’s hard for me, when I give up and it seems that the movement towards the goal has stopped or even turned back, I remember these stories, these people, I feel ashamed of my weaknesses and I move forward further.
I hope they will help you overcome difficulties on the path to your personal success and give you a boost of energy.
A loved one told me this story, coming one day after a lecture with great enthusiasm. We were sitting at a lecture in the library for the blind, he said, the lecturers replaced one another.
It was very interesting. Among the lecturers, a young man in a neat, elegant suit was waiting to speak. He didn’t stand out among the others in any way and we didn’t pay any attention to him at all, but then his turn came.
He stood up and confidently walked to his place in front of the audience and told us what opportunities modern technologies exist for blind and visually impaired people, and specifically about the opportunities in the Internet. At the same time, he actively and deftly showed how his own personal gadgets work.
Then he had to show how a desktop computer works. He walked into another room and confidently sat down at the computer and very quickly, sliding the fingers of his right and left hands over the keys, walked through various sites, showing us Internet resources for the blind.
How blind people live. Blindness is not a hindrance to success
Our surprise was great when we realized that Sasha, that was the young man’s name, was completely blind himself, that is, he could not see anything. He doesn’t even sense light, that is, he can’t approach the window based on the light source, only by hearing and with the help of a cane.
What does a blind person see? Try it, blindfold your eyes with a thick cloth, and you will understand how a blind person feels. Black haze.
Somewhere in Europe there is a restaurant where people sit and try to eat in complete darkness.They say few people survive until the end of the meal, but Sasha lives like this all the time.
We were shocked how he walked alone, without the help of other people. Our surprise became even greater when we learned that he lives very close, at the other end of our city of a million people, and every day he travels from home to work with two transfers.
How he does this is beyond my comprehension. We were just complaining to each other about how hard it was for us to get to the lecture venue in the cold, how slippery it was, how hard it was to walk over the snowdrifts after an overnight snowfall.
How could he, a blind man, overcome all this? Our complaints now seemed ridiculous to us. Everyone became quiet and began to listen to Sasha’s story with respect.
Life of blind people. The story of a blind guy
Sasha went blind at the age of 12, after an absurd accident when he was playing with firecrackers with other boys. An explosion occurred and Sasha received severe burns to both eyes.
Along with his vision, he lost two fingers on his right hand. The question arose of how to live further. Together with his parents, he decided not to give up, but to become an educated person and take advantage of all the opportunities of modern civilization.
“Yes,” says Sasha himself, it was very difficult. At first, I was completely attached to my parents. They met and escorted me to and from school.
But by the age of 16, I realized that if this continues, then I will remain attached to someone, will not be able to live my own life, become independent and will not achieve success.
I set myself , achieve everything that ordinary people want to achieve and help other blind people achieve their goal. I decided to start with the simplest goal for all other children, but very difficult for me - to become a person free in my movements.
And one day, getting up early in the morning, while my parents were still not up, I quietly got ready and went to school on my own, which I had never done before. As it turned out later, my mother heard everything, but, understanding my idea, she made an effort and did not stop me.
She was just watching me from the window. This was also a victory for her, because it is very difficult to let go of your loved one in such a situation, to understand and give him the opportunity to go towards his goal of achieving success.
Without disturbing me, my mother supported me in difficult times.”
In front of Alexander there was a picture, like a photo, of what he would like to achieve and he decided to go to this picture, to this happy photo. Blind people dream differently than sighted people; their dreams seem worthless to healthy people.
And for them, just walking down the street is akin to a feat.
Strength of will. Life of a disabled person and life with a disabled person
Sasha reached school. This was his first small victory, his personal success, the first step in his long and complex ladder of success.
But I was not going to stop there, Sasha continues, I have always been fascinated by computer technology. I spent a lot of time at the computer while I was sighted.
And I entered the Institute of Information Technology and graduated from it. Became the chief IT technology specialist in a library for the blind. I also work on the Internet, using its enormous capabilities.
Recently I got my wife involved in this. By the way, she has a webinar this evening, he admits. In general, she is a massage therapist, but she does not work in her specialty yet and I attracted her to .
Very comfortably. She sits at home, but does not turn into a housewife, but works and feels confident. Well, that’s the answer, we thought, probably his wife is helping him after all. But, to our greatest surprise, it turned out that the wife is also blind and they live separately from their parents.
By the way, we earned money for the apartment ourselves and bought it. They also recently had a child. He is sighted, and of course, his parents will do everything to make him successful.
And how could it be otherwise when such parents are in front of your eyes? This is such a family, such a path to success.
So, friends, nothing is impossible. If you want something, set goals, one after another. Build your own . Go to them without giving up. Use all your capabilities 100%.
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By its nature, film is a visual medium.
One might assume that an art form designed primarily for the eyes would not be of interest to a blind person, but not in this case.
Not only does Tommy Edison love watching movies, he also reviews them on YouTube. Even though he was born blind, Edison always enjoyed watching movies.
Since he started writing reviews, his videos have attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Edison watches a lot of different films, from "The Hunger Games" to "Reservoir Dogs", but his approach to cinema is completely different from how ordinary moviegoers see it.
"I'm not distracted by beautiful special effects and attractive people. I watch a movie to see the action," he once said. Because he judges films only by what he hears, Edison is not attracted to blockbusters. Although he is a fan of Die Hard.
Even more exciting than his reviews is his second YouTube channel, where he answers interesting questions from his readers. For example, how does a blind person learn to smile, can blind people understand descriptions of flowers, and would Edison want to see if given the opportunity.
Edison's simple but profound personal thoughts provide amazing insight into the world of blind people.
Craig Lundberg was a 24-year-old corporal serving in Bars, Iraq, when his life changed forever. In 2007, a young soldier was seriously injured, resulting in damage to his head, face and hands. Moreover, this accident left him completely blind.
Doctors were forced to remove his left eye, leaving his right eyeball, which also completely lost its function. Suddenly Craig found himself in complete darkness.
Lundberg was being trained to live with a guide dog when he was chosen by the Department of Defense to test out its fantastic new technology called BrainPort.
After putting on a pair of dark glasses equipped with a video camera, images from the camera were converted into electrical impulses and sent to a special device located on Lundberg's tongue.
Scientists are not entirely sure what exactly was at work in this case: the signals passed through the tongue, or through the visual cortex, or through the somatosensory cortex (the part of the brain that processes touch). In any case, Lundberg can now see, in a certain sense of the word.
While the device on the tongue feels like licking a battery, Lundberg can “see” two-dimensional images. He was able to identify simple shapes without making unnecessary movements.
Even more amazing is the fact that he can see letters, which gives him the ability to read. While the device is still being further developed, it promises to give Lundberg new life. At the same time, the soldier himself says that he will never get rid of his faithful guide dog.
Former Royal Navy sailor Alan Lock always dreamed of becoming a submarine officer, but during his training he lost his sight in just six weeks due to a rapid onset.
Locke looks at the world through "frosted glass with white spots." However, he did not allow such a small thing as blindness to drag his life downhill. Inspired by his disability, Locke decided to conquer the world.
Between 2003 and 2012, he competed in 18 marathons, climbed Mount Elbrus and became the first blind person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. However, unsatisfied with this list of achievements, Lock decided to try something else.
In 2009, 29-year-old Milena Channing suffered a stroke that destroyed her primary visual cortex. It should have made her completely blind, but Channing swore she could see the rain dripping onto the ground.
She saw a car whizzing past her house, she even sees her daughter running and playing. When doctors analyzed the woman's brain, they thought that Milena was mistaken.
It is neurologically impossible for her to see anything more than a big void. They believed that young Channing might have developed Charles Bonnet syndrome, in which blind people suffer from hallucinations.
Convinced that these outbreaks were real, Channing met with Gordon Dutton, the only doctor who believed her. An ophthalmologist in Glasgow suspected that Channing was actually experiencing Riddoch's phenomenon, a strange syndrome that causes people to see only moving figures and nothing else.
To test his theory, the doctor sat in a rocking chair and moved back and forth while talking to Channing. Suddenly she saw his silhouette.
Five years after her stroke, a team of researchers confirmed that the part of Milena's brain that processes movement was intact. Instead of sending signals to the visual cortex, her eyes sent information to the part of the brain that interprets movement.
Fortunately, with the help of Dr. Dutton, the woman gradually learned to see things more clearly. She still can't make out people's faces because the part of her brain responsible for it is beyond repair, but the fact that she can see anything at all is a miracle.
Esref Armagan was born in 1953 in Istanbul. However, he suffered serious injuries during childbirth. Not only was the family very poor, but his eyes couldn’t even be called eyes. One was the size of a small pea, and the second did not work at all.
Despite this, Armagan was a very curious baby. Wanting to explore the world, he began to touch everything he could get his hands on and eventually began to draw. Starting at the age of six, he went from butterflies and colored pencils to portraits and oil paints.
Working in complete silence, Armagan visualizes the image and then sketches it using a Braille stylus. He then checks the pencil sketch by examining it with his sensitive left hand.
After that, he uses his fingers and paint to paint a windmill, a villa and even a Volvo.
In 2009, the Swedish car company hired Armagan to paint their new S60. Using his fingers to trace the contours of the car, he quickly drew an impressive picture. Considering a person's lack of vision from birth, this is fascinating.
Armagan's paintings have been exhibited in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the USA and China. He even appeared in an episode of the Discovery Channel's "Real Super People."
However, the strangest thing is that Armagan has a very unusual brain. Harvard scientists asked the Turk to make several sketches, while they recorded information using an MRI scanner.
The scientists were shocked by what they saw. Typically, the visual cortex of a blind person appears as a black spot when scanned. This is exactly what Armagan's cortex looked like when he wasn't drawing, but as soon as he picked up a pencil and started creating, his visual cortex lit up like a Christmas tree.
It looked like he was an ordinary sighted person. Scientists are still trying to unravel the man’s mysterious brain, but for now he transfers everything that happens in his head to paper.
Joe Engressia was a very unusual guy. He was born blind in 1949 and loved playing with telephones, dialing random numbers and listening to voices. It was the only way a boy could entertain himself in the 1950s.
He was also one of those kids who really enjoyed whistling. The combination of these strange hobbies led Joe to penetrate the secret world of the telephone system.
Joe was eight years old when he made the call and started whistling, but then the recording suddenly stopped. He tried again and realized that whenever the whistle reached 2600 Hz, the message was interrupted.
Thanks to his singing abilities, he was able to fool the system, which "believed" that Joe was the operator. His possibilities were essentially limitless. He could make free long-distance calls or communicate with several people simultaneously on a conference call.
In the end, he was so well “trained” that he sent the challenge to himself across the whole world, and received it on a separate receiver.
Obviously, his actions were illegal, so Engressia was arrested twice. Later he found himself at the very center of a strange subculture. As it turns out, Joe wasn't the only one hacking into phone lines.
In the 1970s, "phreaking" (the name given to what Joe and his ilk did) was everywhere, and Engressia became one of the leaders of this activity.
Some of the tech-savvy phreaking offspring, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, went further. Engressia, however, was not so lucky.
Despite the fact that he had an IQ of 172, his unsettled home life, as well as sexual abuse by a teacher as a child, completely unsettled him. In his later life, Engressia changed his last name to Joybubbles and insisted that he was only 5 years old.
Joybubbles collected toys, talked to imaginary friends, and lived under the care of a welfare organization. Sadly, Joe died in 2007, leaving behind an impressive but depressing legacy.
Anyone who drives a car has Ralph Teetor to thank. In the 1940s, he invented one of the most useful features in a car: cruise control. This is impressive considering that Ralph became blind at the age of five.
He lost his sight during an accident, however, this did not stop him from inventing and making things.
In fact, being blind even gave him an advantage that many inventors lack. Not only could he concentrate better on his tasks, he was also not limited by what his eyes told him.
He was free to create what his mind saw, and he created quite a few interesting things in his time. In 1902, a 12-year-old inventor built a car from scrap materials.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1912, he developed a new type of fishing rod and reel, a locking mechanism, and also discovered a method for balancing steam turbine rotors in destroyer torpedo boats.
Eventually, he opened his own corporation, which specialized in piston rings. However, his greatest achievement came during World War II when he was driving a car driven by his lawyer.
As the story goes, the lawyer could not speak and drive at the same time. Whenever he started talking, the car started moving jerkily. Then he stopped and pressed the gas. This kind of driving quickly made the blind passenger feel sick.
Frustrated with his friend's inability to drive, Titor came up with the concept of cruise control. Ten years later, he decided to patent his invention, and soon after this feature appeared in Chrysler cars.
Today, almost every car on the road is equipped with this feature, all thanks to a blind inventor and a bad driver.
Have you ever heard of Laura Bridgman? There was a time when she was the most famous person on the planet. Born in 1829, Bridgman lost four of her five senses at the age of two after suffering from scarlet fever.
Left with only the sense of touch, the young girl graduated from the Peterson Institute in Boston, whose manager was Samuel Gridley Howe. At his core, he was an unpleasant person, but Laura’s case struck him very much, so when the baby turned seven years old, he decided to teach Laura how to communicate with the outside world.
Bridgman learned to form letters using her fingers, making contact with the palm of her “interlocutor,” slowly creating words and sentences. She also learned to read by feeling the raised letters with her fingers.
Thanks to the hard work she put in, as well as Howe's constant reports, Bridgman became a celebrity. Thousands of fans came to her, asking for an autograph and a lock of hair.
People came from all over the world to watch her read and write, and little girls chipped the glass eyes off their dolls and called them "Laura." She even met Charles Dickenson, who wrote about her in one of his books, which made her even more famous.
Of course, life as a teenager was hard. As she grew older, she began to suffer from anorexia because she could not taste or smell food. She also became the center of a strange experiment.
It is curious what would happen if a person were completely cut off from religious influence. Howe forbade talking to Laura about spiritual matters. When a group of evangelists converted her to Christianity, Howe was furious and abandoned his student.
He even went so far as to claim that blind people were mentally inferior to the rest of the world. Abandoned by her teacher, Bridgman spent the rest of her life at the Perkins Institute, forgotten and abandoned by the world.
Jacob Bolotin occupies a special place in medical history. The son of poor Polish immigrants and a good doctor, he was born in 1888 in Chicago. Unfortunately, congenital blindness was an obsession for the family: three of the seven Bolotin children, including Jacob, were born blind.
Due to his lack of vision, Jacob quickly developed his other senses. Soon he recognized a person by his smell. After graduating from a school for the blind, Bolotin began working as a salesman, selling brushes and typewriters on the streets of Chicago.
His big dream was to become a doctor, but most colleges refused to admit a blind student. However, the guy was very persistent and tirelessly knocked on college doors. He eventually studied at the Chicago Medical College, and at age 24 became the first licensed physician to be congenitally blind.
Bolotin specialized in heart and lungs. Since he could not see his patients, he relied on his fingers and ears to make diagnoses. During an internship at Francis Willard Hospital, he diagnosed a young woman with heart valve complications simply by smelling her skin and listening to her pulse.
In addition to his medical work, he traveled throughout the Midwest lecturing on blindness and organized the first group of blind Boy Scouts. Unfortunately, Bolotin died at the age of 36; about 5,000 people came to his funeral, whose lives in one way or another intersected with the life and work of this man.
Otto Weidt hated the Nazis. He knew that Hitler was a tyrant. When Hitler's anti-Semitic policies "went" through the streets of Berlin, Otto realized that he had to act. Along with the more famous Oskar Schindler, Veidt ran a store staffed primarily by Jews.
The only difference was that Otto's workers were disabled. He constantly hired deaf, dumb and blind people living in the Jewish Home for the Blind and paid them to make brushes and brooms from horsehair.
Veidt knew what it was like to go through life without vision and wanted to help others who suffered from the same problem.
Veidt now had to protect his workers from the Gestapo. At first he tried to convince officials that his people were very important for maintaining the military logistics. When that didn't work, he resorted to bribery, giving away rare items such as champagne, cigars and perfume.
Things got even more complicated when the Nazis decided to expel the Jewish population from Berlin. Veidt fought desperately for his people, doing everything possible and impossible for them.
For example, he saved one of his workers, Alice Licht, who was arrested and thrown into a cattle truck heading to Auschwitz. Despite his blindness, Veidt went to Poland and rented a house there for a young woman.
Veidt and Licht fell in love, but their story was tragic. She left for America after the Reich fell and never saw her blind benefactor again. There was no consolation for a broken heart.
Veidt was posthumously recognized by Yad Veshem as a "Righteous Among the Nations" as a non-Jew who risked everything to save his fellow men.
It is common for a person with excellent vision to wonder what blind people see. Blind people, in turn, are interested in whether all blind people have the same perception of the world, or whether some perceive the world differently, and maybe even see something.
There is no universal answer to the question of what blind people see. First, there are different degrees of blindness. Secondly, since it is not the eyes, but the brain that “sees,” that is, processes visual information, the fact of whether a person has ever seen in his life or was born blind is of great importance.
People born blind
A person who has never had sight sees nothing because he simply cannot see.
Samuel, who was born blind, answered questions during the interview about how he perceives the world around him. He claims that the expression that a blind person sees the world around him as black is not at all true. The fact is that a person who is blind from birth simply does not know what blackness is, he has nothing to compare it with. He quite seriously sees nothing, sees emptiness.
This is difficult for a sighted person to understand, but imagine what you can see with your elbow. Nothing, right?
Another useful exercise is to close one eye and use the open one to focus on something. Now answer, what does your closed eye see?
Completely blind people
People who have completely lost the ability to see have a different experience of perceiving the world.
Some describe complete darkness, as if they are in a dark and deep cave. Some people see bright sparks or experience vivid visual hallucinations. These hallucinations can take on recognizable shapes and colors.
Charles Bonnet syndrome
The processes of perceiving random shapes, colors or flashes of light with complete loss of vision are symptoms of Charles Bonnet syndrome. This syndrome may be long-lasting or may occur in short periods.
Charles Bonnet syndrome is not a mental disorder and is not associated with brain damage.
Functional blindness
In addition to absolute blindness, there is also functional blindness. Definitions of functional blindness vary by country or medical organization.
In the United States, functional blindness is a visual impairment in which the best eye, already at maximum correction, sees worse than 20/200. The World Health Organization defines blindness when the better eye, under optimal conditions, sees no better than 20/500 with less than 10 degrees of vision.
What functionally blind people see depends on the severity of the blindness and the type of impairment.
Legal blindness
The person may be able to see people and large objects, but they are out of focus. A legally blind person can distinguish colors or see objects at a certain distance (for example, they can count fingers directly in front of their eyes).
In other cases, a person loses color perception and sees everything as if in a thick fog. In cases of legal blindness, symptoms of Charles Bonnet syndrome may also appear.
Perception of light
Sometimes people with functional blindness can have light perception. That is, even if a person does not see anything, does not distinguish colors and shapes, he can tell whether it is light or dark around.
Tunnel vision
With tunnel vision, a person loses the ability to see the periphery. In a certain narrow radius, a person’s ability to see the world around him with tunnel vision can be quite good, but the periphery is black. In fact, a person sees only what falls on the central part of the retina.
What do blind people see in their dreams?
A person born blind dreams, but does not see images. The dreams of congenitally blind people consist of sounds, tactile information, aromas, tastes, feelings and sensations - everything that they perceive in reality.
On the other hand, a person who has lost their vision during their lifetime may experience dreams with images and visual information.
The expression and perception of objects in dreams depends on the type and history of blindness. In fact, all people in a dream see the world as they are accustomed to perceive it in reality with the range of vision that is inherent in a person throughout life. For example, a person with color blindness will not be able to see colors in their dreams, even if they really want to.
A person whose vision has deteriorated over the course of his life may see clearly in his sleep, as before, or blurry, as now. The same goes for people who wear corrective lenses: they dream both clearly and blurred. Even visions caused by Charles Bonnet syndrome can become part of dreams. In fact, dreams are a reflection of reality.
Interestingly, rapid eye movement, which characterizes REM sleep, also occurs in some blind people, despite the fact that they cannot see images in their sleep.
Cases in which rapid eye movement is absent during REM sleep include vision loss from birth or at a very early age.
Light perception in blindness
Some experiments conducted with completely blind people confirm that, despite the lack of perception of visual information, they are still able to respond to light.
Evidence of this began to emerge as early as a 1923 research paper conducted by Harvard graduate student Clyde Keeler. Keeler bred blind mice that, due to a certain mutation, lacked photoreceptors in the retina.
Even though the mice did not perceive visual stimuli, their pupils still responded to light. In addition, the mice adhered to circadian rhythms, established by round-the-clock cycles of day and night.
Eighty years later, scientists discovered special light-sensitive cells belonging to the retina, or more precisely to the nerve ganglion (ipRGCs). These cells are found in both mice and humans.
ipRGCs are found on the nerves that carry signals from the retina to the brain, rather than on the retina itself. The cells respond to light without contributing to vision. Thus, if a person has at least one eye that can perceive light, regardless of the level of vision, he is theoretically able to distinguish between light and dark.