Dreaming about
being blind

Sight is the sense people fear losing most, so a dream of sudden darkness tends to stay with you long after you've woken up and checked that you can still see. Dreaming about being blind is rarely about your eyes, though. It usually points to something in your life that you can't see clearly, or to something you can see perfectly well and would rather not look at.

How the blindness came makes a big difference to the reading. Going blind slowly is a different dream from waking up in the dark, and both differ from eyes that simply won't open however hard you try. Where you were when it happened (driving, at home, among strangers) and whether anyone helped you are what turn the dream into your own.

What dreaming about being blind means

English is full of sight words for understanding, and we say "I see" when we get something, talk about blind spots, turn a blind eye and fall for blind faith. Blindness dreams lean on that language.

Something you can't make sense of

Confusion is where most blindness dreams start. A situation at work, in a relationship or in your family may have become too complicated to follow, and you feel you're moving through it in the dark. These dreams often come when you're waiting on information you don't have yet, like test results, a decision from someone else or the end of a long negotiation.

Something you don't want to see

Turning a blind eye is a choice, and some blindness dreams point to a truth you've decided to ignore, maybe a partner's behavior, money problems or your own unhappiness in a job. If you felt oddly relieved to be blind in the dream, this reading is worth sitting with.

Having to trust someone

Without sight you depend on others, so a blindness dream can be about trust. Who led you, and did you follow? If it was someone you rely on in waking life, the dream is weighing up how much you lean on them. Jesus's line about the blind leading the blind into a ditch^[1] is the warning version, so it may also be worth asking whether the person guiding you can see any better than you can.

Dreaming about going blind

Losing your sight gradually, the world turning gray or blurry, points to a confusion that has been growing for a while. Something that used to be clear, like a goal, a relationship or your idea of who you are, has become harder to make out. A sudden loss is more of a shock, and it often follows news that changed the picture overnight. People also search "going blind in one eye", which usually points to a one-sided view, seeing one side of a story and missing the other.

Dreaming about not being able to open your eyes

Fighting to open eyelids that feel glued shut is one of the most common versions, and it usually happens near waking. Part of your brain is surfacing while your body is still held in dream sleep, so your eyes feel heavy and unresponsive. If it comes with being unable to move, it's closely related to being paralyzed in sleep. As an image, it can point to something you're not ready to face yet.

Dreaming about someone else being blind

When a partner, friend or parent is blind in your dream, it usually means you think they're missing something, often about themselves or about you. A blind parent can be about a parent who never really saw who you are. If you were guiding them, you may feel you're the one who has to explain the world to them, which is tiring.

Dreaming about getting your sight back

Sight coming back after a stretch of darkness is a hopeful turn, and it points to things becoming clear, a decision you've finally made or a confusing period ending. The man healed in John's gospel puts it simply, "whereas I was blind, now I see".^[2]

Seeing it from inside

Start with what you felt and did in the dream, before any symbol. Ask yourself whether the darkness frightened you, calmed you, or made you more alert to sound and touch. Some people find that their blind dreams are surprisingly peaceful, which can point to a need to stop looking and simply feel your way for a while.

Dreaming about being blind according to Jung and Freud

Jung: the shadow you won't look at

To Jung the shadow was everything you've disowned, the traits and wishes you'd never admit to.^[3] Read through it, a blindness dream is about whatever you have the most reason not to look at, with "turning a blind eye" as the waking version. It's his idea carried over to blindness, not a reading he gave.

Freud: the blind father

In one of his own dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud sees an old man who pretends to be blind in one eye while Freud plays his sick attendant. He read the old man as his father, who had glaucoma in one eye, and the scene as a childhood one with the roles reversed: the father who once told the boy he'd never amount to anything is now blind and needs his son's help.^[4]

Other readings

Artemidorus, whose 2nd-century Oneirocritica is the earliest Greek dream book still in existence, split going blind by who was dreaming. He read going blind in both eyes as a sign of trouble for the dreamer's parents, children and siblings, but as a good sign for a prisoner, who wouldn't have to see his troubles, and for the very poor, whom others would then look after.^[5]

The spiritual meaning of being blind in dreams

Blindness in the Upanishads

The Upanishads, India's oldest writings on the self, bring up blindness while arguing about what the dreaming self is. In the Chandogya Upanishad, the god Indra tests whether the self that moves through dreams could be the true self. The text notes that a blind man isn't blind in his dream, nor a lame man lame, but Indra objects that the dreamer still seems to be chased and killed, and weeps, so he can't accept it.^[6] It's a claim about what dreams are, not a reading of a symbol.

Questions to ask about your blindness dream

These questions help you work out what the dark was hiding.

• Did you lose your sight slowly, suddenly, or were you blind from the start?
• Where were you, and what were you trying to do?
• Who helped you, and did you trust them?
• What in your life feels unclear right now, or too painful to look at?

Oniri asks how the darkness came and who was with you before it gives a reading, so the blind spot it finds belongs to you.