I don't think your other sense really improve. I just think you get better at paying more attention to them and noticing subtitles.

I remember walking through Boston with my best friend not long after we met and I was hearing/smelling/feeling a lot of things he was oblivious to, but if I pointed them out when I noticed them, then he could concentrated and pick them out, too. It was kind of a fun little exercise.

Senses are not automatically enhanced when someone loses their vision. People can be taught how to utilize their other senses better, what to pay attention to, etc. When I'm working with my clients, I discuss what sensory information they are getting from the cane, and what different tones/sounds can mean in different contexts.

human brains are wired to prioritise visual information, like all primates. when a sighted person listens, if they want to listen hard, there brain will close their eyes because while the eyes are open the brain will focus on what it sees over everything else, even in the darkness the eyes have to actually be closed. sighted people can not change this process.

when you go blind, the structure of your brain changes to place all remaining senses (including remaining vision) at the same priority. it is basically sense multitasking.

i noticed it first when i was washing up a tea mug. the smooth felt so smooth and suddenly that little chip in the side was glaringly obvious to me. i had this mug for years and thought i knew how it felt. but i most certainly didn't. it was weird, i was noticing the angles and dimensions of a mug that, before i went blind, i probably would not have been able to distinguish from any other mug in the dark.

also my dishes have never been cleaner.

i think sight kind of takes up a lot of memory in the brain compared to other senses. so i can fill up the lost room with data from all my other senses. leaving me in a position where i sometimes know more and sometimes know less about my environment than sighted people.

This enhanced senses thing is a misnomer. We don't get enhanced or better senses, our brain just shifts from being mostly visual processing to using the other senses instead.

Humans are mostly dependant on visual stimuli with other senses taking a back seat to help augment what is perceived visually. When we lose our sight, early or late, our brains can learn to focus more on all other senses.

I have hearing loss but still tend to notice things my sighted family members do not at times. Like the church bells in the distance. I notice air currents and temp changes more easily and pay attention to my sense of smell more:

On the downside as I don't have a constant outward focus such as sight, I notice every little sensation change internally. Like I tend to notice any little change in how my mouth or teeth feel if I don't have something else to concentrate on. It can be annoying.

I can definitely hear better loud noises are bothersome ie lawnmower vaccume bars busy streets.

In my case who became classed blind overnight with sudden illness. I didn't experience any other improvements in other senses. The blindness was caused by stroke at 29, but the doctors did notice some improvement albeit small to the visual field loss. So I was able to slightly improve my sight but not due to other senses becoming enhanced. This is very specific to me as it's a brain problem and not eyes related.

IMO any skills that you have after vision loss is because you put forth the effort to learn them. I wish the skills would just magically appear, I have always wanted to play the piano! 😎

One of my blind living skills instructors told me it was misconception. What she could hear I could. She was born blind so I differ to her wisdom on the matter

Short answer: yes. Longer answer: I think there’s some discussion about the difference between “enhanced/extra sensitive”, etc. And the idea that we simply rely on them differently, so they have sort of come to the forefront to be naturally more noticeable. (I’m sure there’s science on this that can explain the concept of what’s happening.) I learned to read braille while I was still sighted. I could rarely feel what I was reading, so I cheated and visually read as I ran my fingers across it. The first time I read braille post-blindness was in an elevator. Even though I’ve never seen HD TV, I describe it like that. I was floored at how clear the dots felt. Sorry it’s long.

TRDL: yes. Sighted, I couldn’t feel braille dots well. After going blind, they felt super defined.