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Hi, Im not born blind but have been blind for 7 years due to laser treatment for diabetic complications which needed the blood vessels at the back of the eye to be burned out. I have no real vision at all, ie real no external sensory input. Sometimes it is pitch black and sometimes it is very bright and other times its somewhere inbetween. This is NOT at all related to the external ambient light level, this is just my brain turning the gain all the way up and all the way down. At the moment I am sitting here with a 30% light level and can see my arms, legs and fingers which I can see moving. This is a completely false vision just my brain working out where things are and drawing the pictures. If I have a cigarette in my mouth I can "see" it move, however my brain does not decide to draw in the glowing tip, I have not done LSD since I went blind nor in the decade and a half before but I keep meaning to try that particular experiment. When I say I can see my fingers I mean I can see them drum on my knee or other surface they are on, the images appear stronger in the peripheral rather than the central areas, I would be interested in hearing from others with this pseudo vision. Written by my sighted wife

I'm not blind, but I do know that if a person was born blind, and research suggests that this might also be true of those who become blind at a very young age, the part of the brain used for vision gets taken over and used for other things. This means that they wouldn't be able to see even with LSD or stimulation of the brain.

People who become blind later in life certainly build up mental images and stuff, but people who are born blind can't really build mental pictures or anything because they don't know what seeing or images are like. It's like when you ask a blind person if they see blackness. If they were born completely blind, they just aren't aware of any vision input at all, even blackness, whereas someone who lost vision is still looking for visual input, and because they aren't getting any they see blackness.

Anyone who knows better, please correct me.