Symbolism in the dreams of the blind.

The present study compared a group of visually handicapped adults and normally-sighted college students with respect to extent of symbolic content in nocturnal dreams. The visually handicapped group comprised individuals who were partially sighted, congenitally blind and adventitiously blind. Each subject was required to keep a dream-diary for a period of two or four months. These diaries were then content-analyzed for frequency of symbolic instances, with symbols being identified in line with the criteria suggested by Hall (1966) and Hall and Nordby (1972). Although individual differences were marked and some visually handicapped subjects reported highly symbolic dreams, this group, on the whole, revealed less symbolism in dreams than did the normally sighted subjects. There was also a tendency for individuals blinded later in life (after age seven) to manifest more symbolic content in dreams than subjects blinded earlier (before age five). However, for the partially sighted subjects in the study, there emerged no clear relationship between age of onset of visual impairment and amount of symbolism in dreams. In general, the present findings were congruent with those of Blank (1958).