Since we are aware people who are in the after life are using their senses including sight.
Study shows that blind people do not experience visual when they dream. Is  that the case in the afterlife?
Interesting point to ponder.
Richard

Some reports suggest that at death, sight is restored - or at least something that we experience as "sight" occurs.

Im currently reading "Is there an afterlife" by David Fontana. Near the end the book has a section on both OBEs and NDEs both of which he refers to studies which show that blind people who have experienced these phenomena do appear able to see. This includes people born blind.

Senote,

I'll be interested in your reaction to David Fontana's book.  I've been urging posters here to read it for a year now.  I consider it 1 of the 2 most convincing books on survival I've ever read, very well balanced in its assesssments. My only complaint is that it leaves out some of the most important cases against channeling as evidence for survival.  But Fontana would no doubt reply, "I included so much material; I had to leave some studies out."  The other book I'd most recommend is atheist Howard Storm's "My Descent into Death."

Don

I have heard the same things that Senote has heard with regards to blind people and their experiences within the afterlife realms... Even people who have been born blind and have never seen anything in their entire life have had detailed descriptive visions within their experiences whilst in spiritual form. These visual experiences that they've had have had an immense impact on their lives on many levels. For most blind people whom experience this it usually brings tears to their eyes...

The following is a link to a NDE by a person whom was born blind:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Berkserk i'm not no smart book reviewer type fella but i'll try and give my summary of the book so far (I'm about 90% through it and i doubt the last 10% will change these opinions).

Plus points:

1) The book is very thorough, it covers all aspects of survival media from very types of medium to NDE and the more modern EVP.
2) Fontanna comes across as being very honest and often covers both the good and bad points of his case studies. One example of this is in the chaper on mediums in which he openly admits some mediums, while geniune in the phenomena they produce, did rely on fakery at times.
3) While he often points out survival of life after death is the most plausible explenation for the phenomena he does cover the other possibles like Super-ESP etc.
4) The book is very thorough and well researched, it has a lot of depth and gives a lot of information to the reader.

Negative points:

1) Fonanna sometimes relies too much on 'out of date' case studies, particularly in the mediums section. While he somewhat fairly puts forward a good case for their inclusion the weighting is too heavy on old case studies and should have been balanced moor evenly between modern and historical.

*note* When I say 'out of date' I mean simply that the studies themselves due to age provide little or no chance for further investigation. The cases themselves are of great interest and value to the reader.

Summary:

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the survival of conciousness and the various aspects of afterdeath comunication. its well researched well thought out and written and provides a good starting point for anyone looking to do their own research. Its fair and honest and doesn't expect you to just accept its conclusions because Fontanna says so.

In a similar vein to the original posting here I have often wondered if people who are born blind are able to discern colours.

My reason for questioning this is that when I give myself Reiki I always see colours at some stage of my self-treatment. Usually they consist of the spiritual colours, purple, blue, indigo, and violet. However, I have seen all the chakra colours at some time.
Now, I know what these colours are called because I have learnt them from childhood.

A blind person is also well able to become attuned to Reiki, so, if like myself, they give themselves a treatment are they able to "see" colours? If so, how do they know what colour they are seeing? "Seeing" these colours during a treatment is not something which has to be learnt - it just occurs naturally and I cannot believe they would not have the same experience.

For me, an interesting concept.

roger  :-?

Hi roger,
of course it is not possible to certainly know if a blind person is experiencing colors, and more so certain colors in the way seeing people can talk about it.
But I have an idea: In my sensual perception the "channels" of the senses are not completely different, I mean I can give colors attributes which usually are used for perceptions from other sensual channels. For example, colors to me can appear deep, fluffy, hard, soft (haptic/spatial), or shrill, loud, high, low (acoustic), or sick-making, pinpointing in my head, wide, narrow (inner body sensations) and/or I can relate a color to an emotion. I think most people are perceiving this way. So, when talking this way, indirectly, about sensations during Reiki treatment, you could guess what color a blind person might perceive.

Spooky