Bill’s Story - Chapter 9
The mind plays games on blind people.
When you’re blind and start thinking about things like the accident that caused it, or other catastrophic events, like the fear of being in a car accident, you can actually envision it. It all plays out in your mind. You feel the car closing in on you, and it becomes very frightening. You don’t have the visual cues to reassure yourself that this is just the mind playing tell-a-spooky-story game.
It’s hard to have dreams because when you wake up, you’re not aware that it’s a dream. If you have a nightmare and wake up, you’re not even sure you’re awake, because you can’t see your actual surroundings, to re-orient yourself and say, “Oh, it was just a dream.”
I dream more now than I used to, I’m aware of more dreams than ever before. I see in those dreams. It was kind of funny when I went to a conference for the purpose of helping a committee come up with some ideas of what they had to do to make the county courthouses and other buildings accommodate the disabled. There was a guy there who was a double amputee, with no legs below his knees. He said, “I had a dream about walking up the ramp into this building.”
I started to laugh. No one else understood why I was laughing. The guy turned to me, and I said, “In my dreams, I can see.” We both started laughing so hard, we were just rolling, and no one else could get it.
It’s such a different sensation; it’s difficult to explain to somebody.
One problem I had before I got a talking clock was how to tell time. I’d get up in the middle of the night, thinking it was time to get dressed and start the day, not knowing what time it really was. How could I know? I finally figured out that crickets don’t chirp before 5 a.m.
Another frightening thing is going out and not knowing where you are. I have gotten lost before, but you have never really been lost until it happens when you are blind. When you can see your surroundings, you might be confused until you find a familiar landmark. You can reason through your situation and retrace the path you followed to get where you are. When you are blind, reason is the only familiar tool you have. You have to stay cool and calm and do the best you can to back track. Believe me, cane mobility in a gymnasium is quite different than out on the street on crooked and broken sidewalks.
If all else fails, you can ask someone who might be watching you and wondering what you are doing, that is, if you can get them to talk to you.
When traveling and in a hotel room, I wake up and have to go to the bathroom. “Wait a minute, where am I? What’s happening?” You have to reorient according to different criteria than if you have vision.
Even riding in a car can be frightening, not going any faster than the speed limit of 65 or 75. I don’t have any reference points, and getting thrown back and forth when going around a corner just bugs me. This young kid that drives for me now is driving me crazy. It really bugs you to not be able to see which way you’re turning. You have the sensation of the movement, but you can’t prepare for it like when you can see the curve and adjust your body to compensate for the motion. When you’re blind, you have a sensation of the posts flying by faster, or whether they’re going slow. I notice the movement of the car, and I admit, that sometimes I’m probably interpreting the car as going faster than it is. But how do I know for sure?
I’ve wondered a few times whether it’s a reaction to the blindness or a product of the longevity of being blind, but now I’m claustrophobic. Do you remember when that Boy Scout got lost in the Nutty Putty Caves? I had nightmares over that.
We had the scouts at camps last weekend to pass them off on their handicapped awareness merit badge. Richard Bowman, a guy who went to a major school in Wisconsin for the blind, and a guy I call “Doc,” was there from the Blind Center to talk about mobility and teaching the blind. He and I went through a lot of things with the scouts. He showed them how to approach people who are blind, and demonstrated the sighted guide routine. For twenty-five minutes, he’s telling these kids all about how to do these things, and ten minutes later, they forgot all or most of what he said because you can’t learn all of it in that amount of time. You can’t picture what being blind is like. Some people think that they’ll get an idea of what it’s like to be blind by walking around with their eyes closed. But any sighted person can open their eyes whenever they want and be done with the experience. When you’re blind, you can’t open your eyes.
I can’t explain. It’s a different world. Most of the time it’s fun and a little exciting. Sometimes it’s scary.