A friend’s visit took me to a museum exhibition that allows you to experience blindness for an hour. You navigate different locations in total blackness with only the voice of your visually impaired guide calling out to you.  Read on for some thoughts and insights about our brain.

Ever since reading the philosophy of David Hume this realization that “I” am my sensory input has stuck with me. A year into my neuro science masters I’ll tell you that “I” am also these top down predictions that have been learnt throughout the years, but these predictions have been created in order to deal with sensory input. So what are blind people’s predictions? How do they experience the world without such a strong sense?

First we were given a cane and a crash course how to walk with it, tapping on the floor directly in front of us. While everyone just took a cane I took some time checking different sizes wanted my ‘extra’ limb to feel good.

Different sense modalities provide us with information about different distances and sight allows us to extend out world model to include further away environments. That’s why I chose a longer cane hoping that would help compensate and provide me with information about further away surroundings.

For me it was a scary experience especially leaving my eyes open. When I closed my eyes and saw nothing the prediction error wasn’t as big. But staring into total nothingness the brain refused to let go that nothing was there. “Are you seeing these white shiny dots?” my friend asked midway. As fake top down hallucinations took over her perception.

In most people alpha waves increase when closing their eyes, even compared to total darkness. This is most likely an inhibitory mechanism to prevent these false inferences. Would this still occur with blind people? Would their alpha waves of blind people be different? I couldn’t find any information on that.

I asked our guide about anxiety levels when she goes out and she said she doesn’t feel frightened unless she is going somewhere totally knew. It felt so limiting. I kept trying to find the challenge within the limitation and also remain patient because everything just takes much longer. It was also very hard that we were a bunch of ‘new’ blind people constantly bumping into each other. It was so tiring for my brain and I kept sitting down whenever I managed to feel up a bench or a sofa.

The next realization I had was that the directionality of perception spread out. Without the visual input coming from the front there was a different sense of three dimensionality, my brain was modeling the back of the body and the sides with the same amount of resources. This resulted in a slight sense of floatation.

We were taken to a fake supermarket trying to feel our way through shelves packed with stuff. I asked about technological aid and was told that some apps exist where you can take a picture and get information about it. Now I see that there is also a site where you can lend your eyes to a blind person. http://www.bemyeyes.org/. Too bad it’s just on iphone

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what happen when two sets of eyes meet and stare at each other.  It’s not just the knowledge that someone is watching you, it’s the knowledge that they are admitting to watching you. It’s like a ‘handshake’ protocol both sides saying “Yes, I see you”.   Supposedly blind people don’t have this, they don’t know when people are ‘looking’ at them and I was wandering if this gave them some extra freedom but my guide said she somehow did have a sense of when she was being looked at.

Finally we were led into the light and I felt how the power structure changed. In the dark we were dependent on our guide to call out to us so we would follow in the right direction and now suddenly we had access to much more information than her. I thanked her for the profound experience hoping that one day she would at least be able to have a taste of our world.

Seeing Is Believing

A friend’s visit took me to a museum exhibition that allows you to experience blindness for an hour. You navigate different locations in total blackness with only the voice of your visually impaired guide calling out to you.  Read on for some thoughts and a recommendation to try your-self.

Ever since reading the philosophy of David Hume this realization that “I” am my sensory input has stuck with me. A year into my neuro science masters I’ll tell you that “I” am also these top down predictions that have been learnt throughout the years, but these predictions have been created in order to deal with sensory input. So what are blind people’s predictions? How do they experience the world without such a strong sense?

First we were given a cane and a crash course how to walk with it, tapping on the floor directly in front of us. While everyone just took a cane I took some time checking different sizes wanted my ‘extra’ limb to feel good.

Different sense modalities provide us with information about different distances and sight allows us to extend out world model to include further away environments. That’s why I chose a longer cane hoping that would help compensate and provide me with information about further away surroundings.

For me it was a scary experience especially leaving my eyes open. When I closed my eyes and saw nothing the prediction error wasn’t as big. But staring into total nothingness the brain refused to let go that nothing was there. “Are you seeing these white shiny dots?” my friend asked midway. As fake top down hallucinations took over her perception.  

In most people alpha waves increase when closing their eyes, even compared to total darkness. This is most likely an inhibitory mechanism to prevent these false inferences. Would this still occur with blind people? Would their alpha waves of blind people be different? I couldn’t find any information on that.

I asked our guide about anxiety levels when she goes out and she said she doesn’t feel frightened unless she is going somewhere totally knew. It felt so limiting. I kept trying to find the challenge within the limitation and also remain patient because everything just takes much longer. It was also very hard that we were a bunch of ‘new’ blind people constantly bumping into each other. It was so tiring for my brain and I kept sitting down whenever I managed to feel up a bench or a sofa.  

The next realization I had was that the directionality of perception spread out. Without the visual input coming from the front there was a different sense of three dimensionality, my brain was modeling the back of the body and the sides with the same amount of resources. This resulted in a slight sense of floatation.

We were taken to a fake supermarket trying to feel our way through shelves packed with stuff. I asked about technological aid and was told that some apps exist where you can take a picture and get information about it. Now I see that there is also a site where you can lend your eyes to a blind person. http://www.bemyeyes.org/. Too bad it’s just on iphone

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what happen when two sets of eyes meet and stare at each other.  It’s not just the knowledge that someone is watching you, it’s the knowledge that they are admitting to watching you. It’s like a ‘handshake’ protocol both sides saying “Yes, I see you”.   Supposedly blind people don’t have this, they don’t know when people are ‘looking’ at them and I was wandering if this gave them some extra freedom but my guide said she somehow did have a sense of when she was being looked at.

Finally we were led into the light and I felt how the power structure changed. In the dark we were dependent on our guide to call out to us so we would follow in the right direction and now suddenly we had access to much more information than her.