The discussions about whether blind people dream in colors when they are asleep, if they dream in black and white, or if they experience color at all has been mainly philosophical at first. Now, the issue has moved into the realm of science, as researchers attempt to find out exactly what mechanisms are at work in their subconscious minds that set them apart from people who have their sight, and experience highly visual dreams.

No doubt, the field of dreams is still wide open for interpretation to the scientific community, and pinpointing why a certain dream reoccurs constantly, or why people forget only certain dreams, is like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack. The depths that the human mind can reach, proved on countless occasions, simply leave scientists speculating.

In an attempt to determine how and what blind people dream, researchers from the University of Hartford Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology, the University of California in Santa Cruz, and the University of Connecticut, led by Craig S. Hurovitz, performed a study on 372 dreams that 15 blind adults had over a determined period of time.

“There was a strong relationship between the lack of visual sensory references and (1) congenital or early childhood blindness; total blindness; and a high percentage of the person's total life spent in blindness. Four of the seven congenitally blind subjects who were totally blind had no indications of visual imagery in their dream reports. Nor did a 49-year-old woman totally blind since 18 months or a 58-year-old woman blind since age 12,” the study reads.

The researchers conclude that people who are blind from a very early age do not perceive colors or imagery at all, but, rather, experience a higher degree of auditory, olfactory, and sensory integration in their dreams. “In another dream [a woman] described a beautiful table with two big silver candelabras on it. When asked how she knew the candelabras were silver, she replied it was because they were 'very smooth to touch,'“ the paper says.