Monday, February 8, 2010

Do Deaf people hear in their dreams?

Whoo, I just woke up from a dream. I already forgot what it was about. Haha. However, I do recall two things that seems quite contradictory to each other. I was debating with a Hearing man and a Deaf man. The hearing man was talking and instead of lip-reading him, the Deaf man and I listened with our ears. Yes, we actually heard him. Then the Deaf man signed pure ASL with his voice turned off completely. The Hearing man and I understood him through our eyes. Finally, when I talked, I actually signed and talked at same time. The Hearing man never looked at me. He "heard" me while the Deaf man did look at me.

After waking up, I began to wonder:
  1. How do Deaf people process language in their mind? 
  2. When Deaf people read a book, do they see people signing? Do they see pictures? Do they "hear" it? 
  3. In their dreams, do Deaf people hear everything? Do they sign? Feel? 
I googled it up and I found only two common answers... 
  • "Research suggests deaf people who have some ability to phonologically encode letters and words are the best readers." In other words, they hear it in their Deaf minds. 
  • Deaf people visualize and feel the words.
    • i.e. "A beautiful woman is crying for Help". Some Deaf people would visualize a beautiful woman and she is signing "Help." 
I'll tell you how I process language. 
H + picture of an ear = Hear (or here).

I combine both sounds and pictures in my head. This kind of thinking is called, "Rebus." This kind of thinking seems not to be too common among people. Go figure.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Tell me.... How do you process Langauge in your head? Do you sign in your dream? Do you hear when you're reading a book? 

3 comments:

  1. In my dream, I do not hear.. I telepath with each other.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha. Awesome! Very Sci-Fi of you!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I always dream in ASL. I don't recall ever dreaming that I could "hear."

    On another topic, in 16 years of teaching English to Deaf students, I find no truth to the statement that Deaf people that can hear some or "hear phonetically" are better readers. In fact, in my personal experience, I've found it to be the opposite.

    ReplyDelete