Category: Let's talk
All my life, I've had people try to explain sight to me. I can remember someone taking something hot and saying that's the colour red, and something cold and saying that's the colour blue etc. But none of it made sense to me. How could red equal hot and blue equal cold unless you have synaesthesia or something? So I'm appealing to those people who had sight and lost it, especially if you've gone totally blind. What is it like to see? How can you explain it to someone who's never seen light, let alone all the other things that go along with it? For those who have never seen, how do you imagine sight to be? Are you as confused as me or do you have a better idea of it.
Hello, I know what you mean. I know people who have lost their sight at a young age. When it comes to explaining something like colour, they don't know how to explain it, to someone who has never seen it before. The woman I know associates colour with certain events that happend to her so it does help her a bit. As for imagining sight, it's something I've never really thought about though when I was younger I sometimes used to take a book and pretend that I was reading it.
I agree. How can you even imagine what a colour could be like, or why certain colours are different, or shades of colours, or light, when you have never seen anything? It's fascinating. In a way I wish I could experience it, though I'd not undertake anything radical to do so.
I'm sighted. Yes, it is hard to explain especially images I know adjectives wont cut the right description because everyone sees their environment in a different way, so Its quite hard. I have a suggestion, try thinking of other shades that you can associate with an object. Something apart from black. People who lost their sight at an early age or a little bit later can at least define color from what they can still remember otherwise just use your imagination.
That might work for people who lost their sight, so it's a great suggestion for them. But I lost mine when I was two months old. *smile*
Yeah, it does not work for everyone. I think the last suggestion about associating colors with different events might probably work. But Its hard because its not the same for everyone.Try reading descriptive fiction, It will help your imagination to make up something from the story and that would serve as your mind's definition of colors.
I think a lot of us who lost it before we can remember anything lack something critical for it, or at least some. As I understand it colors are based off of light, at least in a sense. Those of us who don't even understand what light is I'm not sure really will ever understand it. at least that's what I've seen thus far. (I base this also off of the fact that my friends that are blind but can see light, seem to have some concept of what color is, while those of us who have always been totals don't.)
I don't think it is explainable to someone who has never been able to see. It would be like trying to explain to a deaf person what it is like to hear, and to a person who has never been able to smell what it is like to sniff the air. Try that one day, and you will know what I mean. I have never been able to see more than shadows myself, and yet I couldn't begin to explain to someone with no concept of vision what it was like.
Although for most practical purposes I consider myself to be totally blind, I do have some light perceptions and agree that even this small amount of vision does probably help me to develop some sense of the fundamental concepts of color which those who lack it do not.