“Blindness” is quite a vague word indeed, but most people refer it to a lack of vision, which is why the government has put in effect legal terms that determine who really are blind. For example, “complete blindness” refers to the inability to see anything at all, while “legal blindness” means those who have poor or limited eyesight including people with glaucoma and cataracts.

Did you know that totally blind people can still see things? As weird and ironic as it may sound, it is theorized that there are indeed some things that totally blind people can see, theories that are actually backed up by research and study.

Nothing

No, we’re not joking, and neither are completely blind people when asked, “what can you actually see?” Oftentimes, they become irate over this repetitive question, to which their answer usually is, “nothing.” As cliché as it sounds, this is the most used answer because explaining this concept from the perspective of the blind person is as hard as describing colors to them by a person with a perfect vision. In reality, it’s hard to believe that they cannot see anything, but it’s the truth: not even the color black.

To somehow try to experience what the completely blind person sees, try closing one of your eyes and let the open one focus on one thing. Make sure that you concentrate hard. After which, you’ll observe in your closed eye that you cannot see anything, just nothing. Imagine that happening to both of your eyes and that’s how it feels.

Colors

Those who lost their vision in their lifetime, be it because of an accident or a disease, reported seeing colors even after years of not being able to see anything. One such person who experiences this phenomenon is BBC journalist Damon Rose who lost his eyesight 31 years after a surgery he had undergone when he was a child.

Apparently, he sees a lot of colors that in his opinion is quite distracting. Rose explained that these colors come in different shapes and sizes along with flashes of lights. He reported that these colors would change rapidly and sometimes overlap each other, like a color which has another color as its background.

Nightmares

Little did people know that totally blind people are also experiencing nightmares, which are brought about by the stress that accompanies them while awake. According to the Danish Center for Sleep Medicine, the blind are four times more likely to have extremely bad dreams compared to those with perfect vision.

The study analyzed 50 people, 25 of which were blind and the other half who had good eyesight; of those who could not see anything, 11 had a lack of vision since birth while the other 14 got blind during their lifetime. Surprisingly, those who were born blind had nightmares 25 percent of the time; while those who lost their eyesight in their lifetime experienced nightmares only 7 percent of the time; with those with intact vision at only 6 percent.

How can this be possible considering they don’t actually see anything even when they’re awake? The research showed that those born blind have nightmares relating to their other senses, like what they smelled, tasted, felt, and heard when they were awake.

Pop-up Ads

Surfing the internet has been a blessing and a curse at the same time: it gives us unlimited information, however, it has also become a hotspot for advertisers to promote their products and services even for those who don’t or might never actually want it. Pop-up ads are one of the most irritating forms of promotion because these tend to just appear upon opening websites with no forewarning.

For most people, they can just exit the pop-up ads the minute they are greeted by them but for the blind, using a screen reader ultimately gets the job done, until these pesky nuisances appear unwarranted, only to be noticed after a couple of minutes by blind individuals. If they close the ad, the screen reader scans the whole material, say, an article, again, which can be irritating, to say the least.

Yes, there are ad blockers out there but there are also numerous sites that do not allow them since companies pay huge sums of money for their promotions to reach a lot of people. Ethan Zuckerman, the man who created the code for these irritating pop-up ads, officially apologized for what was dubbed as the “Internet’s original sin.”