Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Random question about perception of 'self' (self.Blind)
submitted by Nuclearun
This is something of a shower thought, but it's been bugging me for a while, a little background first. I'm going to use the term 'soul' but I don't mean in a biblical sense I really mean the perception of yourself, your personality and where "You" reside within your own body. For example, you might regret the loss of, say, a toe, but most people don't feel like their soul resides in their toe (well, you might feel that way briefly when you stub your toe and your entire existence becomes PAIN, but that's a brief edge case). I've always felt that my 'soul' resides within my head, specifically behind my eyes, as though I were peering out of the world through a set of windows. However I started to wonder if that was because what felt like the majority of my sensorium resides in or on my head. I perceive the world by seeing it, and to a lesser degree hearing it, and finally by touching it. I don't mean to say that touch is unimportant, only that it is something of an extension, my 'soul' doesn't reside in my fingertips when I'm typing, it remains in my head, even when I''m not looking at the keyboard or monitor.
The obvious question that follows , is this the same for people who are blind (I suppose I specifically mean born blind)? Do they still feel like they reside within their own skulls? Perhaps because their hearing is what lets them perceive things at a distance they feel their 'soul' exists between their ears. Or is it a more body central perception of their 'soul' since they might tend towards a higher proprioception than sighted people? I suppose it's entirely possibly that my perception of the location of my 'soul' and it's location is something others tend not to think about at all.
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Anyway, I'm mostly just trying to voice this thought to see if anyone else has any knowledge or experience they'd be willing to share. Thanks for your time, and please forgive any errors I've made in terminology.
The obvious question that follows , is this the same for people who are blind (I suppose I specifically mean born blind)? Do they still feel like they reside within their own skulls? Perhaps because their hearing is what lets them perceive things at a distance they feel their 'soul' exists between their ears. Or is it a more body central perception of their 'soul' since they might tend towards a higher proprioception than sighted people? I suppose it's entirely possibly that my perception of the location of my 'soul' and it's location is something others tend not to think about at all.
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Anyway, I'm mostly just trying to voice this thought to see if anyone else has any knowledge or experience they'd be willing to share. Thanks for your time, and please forgive any errors I've made in terminology.
retrolental_morose 3 points 2y ago
I was born only perceiving light.
For me also, it's the head. Thought, hearing, taste, smell and ... volition? seems to come from there, however inaccurate that may be in terms of reality, that's how it feels to me.
For me also, it's the head. Thought, hearing, taste, smell and ... volition? seems to come from there, however inaccurate that may be in terms of reality, that's how it feels to me.
hopesthoughts 2 points 2y ago
You said not in the biblical sense, but that's exactly what I believe. As for the mind, will, and emotions that make up the soul, they exist deep within my brain
oncenightvaler 2 points 2y ago
Hi there, guy born totally blind here. I've never really thought about where my soul resides, I suppose I could say it's inside my skull in my brain in my mind.
Your thought about fingers was very interesting since I do at least 50% of my reading in Braille do I think sometimes using my fingers to process?
I was once told about this test that psychologists did with a dot in a mirror, and how humans of like a year and older can perceive that they don't have the dot on them even though it's in the mirror but that animals think they have the dot upon them, but then that's not a very good test since an animal was never told the concept of a mirror. I was trying to puzzle out when I was first aware of myself as opposed to others, and I can't remember a time when that was not true, guess it's just one of those things you naturally learn and don't come to an epiphany about.
tldr: do not think I have any less of a sense of self and soul for being totally blind, but will say I never much thought of a souls location.
Your thought about fingers was very interesting since I do at least 50% of my reading in Braille do I think sometimes using my fingers to process?
I was once told about this test that psychologists did with a dot in a mirror, and how humans of like a year and older can perceive that they don't have the dot on them even though it's in the mirror but that animals think they have the dot upon them, but then that's not a very good test since an animal was never told the concept of a mirror. I was trying to puzzle out when I was first aware of myself as opposed to others, and I can't remember a time when that was not true, guess it's just one of those things you naturally learn and don't come to an epiphany about.
tldr: do not think I have any less of a sense of self and soul for being totally blind, but will say I never much thought of a souls location.
Nuclearun [OP] 2 points 2y ago
The mirror test is kind of an amazing test, especially when you consider what it tells us about the animals who "pass" the test. So far I believe that humans and other great apes, some corvids, elephants, and dolphins are the ones that can pass the test (at least some of the time). There's also the interesting reversal where they painted a spot on an elephants head (not the mirror) before it saw the mirror and it recognized that the elephant in the mirror was "itself" and touched the spot on it's own head to investigate it further right away. A lot of animals seem to think that the reflection in the mirror is actually a whole other animal separate from themselves (or so it seems), but the test does seem to have some biases, and other creatures like octopi or squid seem to ignore mirrors altogether, despite being proven to be incredibly intelligent.
That aside I think it's been taken as given that most babies seem to become aware that, others are separate from themselves around the age of two or so. This is proposed to be one of the reasons behind the "Terrible twos" that most children seem to go through, they are slowly learning that the people around them are, well, people, just like themselves, and therefore have desires that don't necessarily align with their own. (at least that's what I seem to recall from what little developmental psych I dealt with in college). The other side of that coin is that adults seem to only really have memories going back to about the age of 3-4, so it's unlikely anyone would ever remember the transition (not impossibly, just unlikely). Young children might actually have memories from earlier in their lives, but conveying the idea you're asking them about, and then having them convey an accurate age back would be... difficult to say the least, especially since most babies and toddlers don't seem to have a firm grasp on "time".
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Ultimately I probably shouldn't use the term 'soul', its more the sense, or sensation of where the "you" that is yourself resides within your body. Thank you though! I do greatly appreciate the input and discourse!
That aside I think it's been taken as given that most babies seem to become aware that, others are separate from themselves around the age of two or so. This is proposed to be one of the reasons behind the "Terrible twos" that most children seem to go through, they are slowly learning that the people around them are, well, people, just like themselves, and therefore have desires that don't necessarily align with their own. (at least that's what I seem to recall from what little developmental psych I dealt with in college). The other side of that coin is that adults seem to only really have memories going back to about the age of 3-4, so it's unlikely anyone would ever remember the transition (not impossibly, just unlikely). Young children might actually have memories from earlier in their lives, but conveying the idea you're asking them about, and then having them convey an accurate age back would be... difficult to say the least, especially since most babies and toddlers don't seem to have a firm grasp on "time".
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Ultimately I probably shouldn't use the term 'soul', its more the sense, or sensation of where the "you" that is yourself resides within your body. Thank you though! I do greatly appreciate the input and discourse!
FantasticGlove 2 points 2y ago
I feel that my soul lives within my entire body and not one part. It's like my soul is the same size as my body and it fits my whole body like a suit. This is just how I feel.
Nuclearun [OP] 2 points 2y ago
Interesting perspective! I definitely feel like I 'inhabit' my body (for lack of a better term), it's just that I'm not generally conscious of the entirety of my body, contrary-wise I am almost always conscious of my head and what I'm seeing/hearing/tasting, what have you. Thanks for the input!
DrillInstructorJan 1 points 2y ago
I have sometimes used this sort of language to answer the endless questions about what it's like. Probably everybody gets those questions but not everyone answers them from the same perspective. My experience was having normal sight then having none and the way I have described it is by feeling like I was stuck with my head in a box. I felt even more closed in and walled off than the normal sensation of existing in your own head.
It still happens even now, years and years later, a feeling of being trapped inside something and really wanting to escape. So the answer to the question is, I feel even more walled up in my head than I did when I could see. But that's probably just more my personal background than anything you could apply to anyone else.
It still happens even now, years and years later, a feeling of being trapped inside something and really wanting to escape. So the answer to the question is, I feel even more walled up in my head than I did when I could see. But that's probably just more my personal background than anything you could apply to anyone else.
Nuclearun [OP] 1 points 2y ago
I'm sorry to hear that, it really does sound like it could be very mentally claustrophobic. It does kinda follow what I expected concerning the "location of self" within the head, but you're right, having been born with sight and then losing it could have been a bias.
DrillInstructorJan 2 points 2y ago
I should probably point out that it's a fairly intermittent thing, only when I'm getting really wound up and tired at the end of the day and things aren't going well for whatever reason. I'm not a total basket case 24 7, honest!
Rethunker 1 points 2y ago
A few months ago I asked sighted and blind people where their thoughts felt centered. There wasn’t a consensus.
The centeredness tended to be located some place just behind the eyes or a few inches farther back, between the ears. If I remember correctly, one person reported a less tightly focused feeling of centeredness a bit farther back in the head.
Our sense organs have their own coordinate systems, so it’s my guess that the origin (the center point) of the dominant sense’s coordinate system determines the sense of one’s center. Based on informal canvassing it doesn’t seem to be quite this neat and tidy, but it’s a starting point.
I’ve not yet asked this of anyone who is congenitally DeafBlind. At a trade show someone mentioned to me that a DeafBlind person may not feel centered in their head, but I don’t have a direct comment from one or more DeafBlind people to back that up.
I wouldn’t expect this to be an easy question to answer. For any given sense the brain does a lot of adjustment and compensation and cross-comparison, which certainly complicated things.
The centeredness tended to be located some place just behind the eyes or a few inches farther back, between the ears. If I remember correctly, one person reported a less tightly focused feeling of centeredness a bit farther back in the head.
Our sense organs have their own coordinate systems, so it’s my guess that the origin (the center point) of the dominant sense’s coordinate system determines the sense of one’s center. Based on informal canvassing it doesn’t seem to be quite this neat and tidy, but it’s a starting point.
I’ve not yet asked this of anyone who is congenitally DeafBlind. At a trade show someone mentioned to me that a DeafBlind person may not feel centered in their head, but I don’t have a direct comment from one or more DeafBlind people to back that up.
I wouldn’t expect this to be an easy question to answer. For any given sense the brain does a lot of adjustment and compensation and cross-comparison, which certainly complicated things.
Nuclearun [OP] 2 points 2y ago
That's kind of what I expected to find. I'd thought that seeing might be a major bias but... without sight you'd still have sound, smell/taste, and (perhaps most importantly) your semi-circular canals all within your head, all of which would seem to bias your sense of center, or "where your 'soul' or 'self' resides within you".
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