Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-02-04
BLIND MEMS DREAMS.
The Peculiar Visions of the Sightless /
Their SAUNDERS.


The Peculiar Visions of the sightless in
Their SAUNDERS.
dreaming the happy hours away is
the refrain of once popular song.
There are few people, nevertheless, who
do not profess to prefer the pleasures of
the waking hours to those of slumber,
however bright may be their visions
But to the blind who have in other DAYS
looked out upon the beauties of nature
and met their fellows in the fullness of
sight, the happiest hours are those which
bring to them oblivion of sleep and the
sweet consolation of dreamland. Su-
perintendent Hall, of the Working Home
for Blind Men in West Philadelphia,
said in a conversation upon this subject:
II have no greater pleasure in life,
now that have lost my sight, than in
dreaming, for then. and then only. 1
catch glmpses of the world about me.
from my eyes and | see like other men;
see as did in years gone by before the
terrible affliction came on me and shut
out the light of day. l never dream
that I am blind. In dreamland l never
seem to have been blind. I am at the
Home, to be sure, but instead of hav-
ing only my fingers and my ears to
guide me l can see the inmates, and
what is stranger yet, although in reality
have never seen one Of them, in my
dreams they all appear familiar to me
by sight and not by their voices.
This curious experience of Mr.. Hall
seems to be that of all persons who have
become blind after the early years of life
have passed. The blind who have been
so afflicted from birth never dream of
seeing any thing. The impressions of
their dreams are regulated by the i'm
pressions made and ideas obtained by
the sense of touch, of hearing, of taste
and smell. One of the most Intelligent
inmates of the West Philadelphia Home,
who came into the world blind, says
that although he has read a great deal,
he never dreams of the things he has
read about, and never dreams of any
thing or person with which he has not
in some way come in personal contact.
He dreams of music, of the voices of
persons he knows, of such incidents as
might happen at the Home or some
place in which he has actually been, but
never of incidents in other places or in
other lands. OF a landscape, picture,
a tree or a human being he never
dreams. Even although he has read
descriptions of localities, of natural
beauties, of the appearance of street
or city, no idea of what they look
like is formed in his mind, and none
comes to him in the fancies of his
sleep.
A blind man has been known to
dream of a ghost, and he thus tells the
at ~, Il
I said: Bless me, if that amt John,
and took him by the sleeve; it was his
shirt-sleeve felt. and / was afraid Of
him. Then l dreamed that he con-
tinued to brighten me, as 1 knew that he
was dead. thought that was being
pushed by his ghost. Then 1 woke up,
and felt no more" Our blind friend
at the Home often dreams of being out
in the street or in the country, but he
did not dream that he saw the street or
the scenery in the country, but he felt
the open air of the country, and recog-
nized the street because he was dream
ing of one along which he had frequent
ly walked.
Curious and full of interest as are the
dreams of the blind of every condition,
there is class of blind people whose
sleeping impressions are of especial inter-
est-that class of unfortunate people who
become blind when quite young, at a
period when external objects, and the
outward world generally, had just begun
to make an impression upon them.
Such blind people sometimes, but not
always, dream that they can see; but in
their vision they see things with the
eyes of childhood, and they never dream
of any scene or object except those
which, like dim recollection, have re-
manned in the memory from what they
actually saw before they became blind
A blind man who was stricken at the
age of five years and never visited the
country dreams of seeing city streets,
city houses or city parks, but never of
country scenery, of railroad, or of
river, and so vice versa. As often as not
this class of blind persons dream as if
they had never been blind at all, and at
other times as if all memory of blind
ness had passed from them.-Philadel-
phia Record.