Can the blind see in the Astral Plane?

[Woodland]

While I was reading about the Astral plane, a question popped in my head.
I was wondering if there is any documentation on whether a blind person
has ever had an OBE, and could see in the Astral plane?
I'm talking about someone who was born blind and had never seen the light of day.
I mean if someone who never had vision before, who could describe trees and mountains. That would be absolute proof that OBE's are real.

[rapidlearner]

This is how it works for dreams:

Those blind since birth or very early childhood have no visual imagery in their dreams. Instead, they experience a very high percentage of taste, smell, and touch sensations in their dreams.

The breakdown is as follows:

There are no visual images in the dreams of those born without any ability to experience visual imagery in waking life.

Individuals who become blind before the age of five seldom experience visual imagery in their dreams.

Those who become sightless between the ages of five and seven may or may not retain some visual imagery.

Most people who lost their vision after age seven continue to experience at least some visual imagery, although its frequency and clarity often fade with time.

Source:
http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/hu ... 1999a.html
This is a rather scholarly paper and dry reading.

For more information, go to google.com, search on "blind people dream" and you'll get links to many sites about the dreams of the blind.

Since OBE's are similar to dreams (arguably) I guess it would follow the same kind of principal. I think it would be hard to tell if someone that was born blind from birth actually is seeing the same way you do as they can only rely on the information before them and explain what it is they're seeing... That wouldn't be proof, it would just be the way they describe the feeling of the experience, for example, a blind person can tell you he walkd down the street and got on a bus, which creates the mental image in your mind but that wouldn't be the same creation in his mind. Just like you trying to explain what the colour green looks like to a blind person, it's impossible unless you compare it to other colours or they've seen it before.

[CFTraveler]

I agree with everything rapidlearner said- the blind may 'see' as we 'see' in the astral, but what they 'see' is different than what we 'see.' Notice I put 'see' in quotes because I don't think we 'see' in the astral the same way we 'see' in waking reality- we experience sight, but I think it's remembered and reinterpreted data presented as 'sight'-for the sighted.
JMO.

[Korpo]

I think this has to with our physical brains. Any experience that is not wired in them (as sight is not when you are born blind) cannot be downloaded.

I think this disability will vanish when the physical body is no longer and you return into the ether.

Oliver

[Woodland]

I think we all agree that when we all pass on, we no longer have the restrictions that our body has on us, such as blindness, or someone who can't walk would be free of his disability.
So if we can really have an OBE, then someone who is blind should see, and someone who can't walk can walk.
Unless of course because we are still attached to our body (silver cord) then maybe it wouldn't be possible.

[Rhone]

Robert Bruce addresses this question quite well in Astral Dynamics (Chapter 7--OBE and Perception).

Basically, someone who has experienced sight and has a memory of what it was like will be able to experience visual perceptions both in dreams and OBEs. Someone who has been blind since birth will not experience visual perceptions in dreams and OBEs. However, someone who has been blind since birth will still "perceive" their surroundings very well, it will just be with different senses; they will not perceive light and color, but they will "feel" everything around them. RB even suggests that the habit of sighted people to perceive things visually can actually be limiting in an OBE, and that the perception of someone who is blind can, in some ways, be superior.

RB includes an explanation a blind person who OBEs gave to him about what his OBE perception is like. I'll quote a couple interesting parts:

(from Astral Dynamics, p. 102)

When I project it's like I can feel everything around me, as if I am continually touching everything with my fingers, with my mind, with my senses reaching out and touching everything around me all at once.

If I meet people during an OBE or dream, I can instantly tell what they look like and what they are wearing, just as if I were running my hands all over them.

[Korpo]

I actually had a semi-lucid "touch OBE" because this is my most developed clairsense. It's dark but the spatial information is still there. Like a 3D sense of touch that behaves very similar to sight. It is a very interesting experience. You know where things are. Your "personal field" is bigger.

Oliver

[Three_Nails]

http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?t=9243 <----- My Old Thread.


This reminds me of the question I had about my deaf little brother. People gave me lots of good/interesting comments, you could read through those as well.


Also, in Robert Bruce's book, ASTRAL DYNAMICS, there is a good testimony of a blind man who projected frequently. He was actually Bruce's inspiration for the NEW system.