What is colour blindness?

Colour (color) blindness (colour vision deficiency, or CVD) affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200
women in the world. In Britain this means that there are approximately 2.7 million colour blind people (about 4.5%
of the entire population), most of whom are male.

There are different causes of colour blindness. For the vast majority of people with deficient colour vision the
condition is genetic and has been inherited from their mother, although some people become colour blind as a
result of other diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis or they acquire the condition over time due to the
aging process, medication etc.

Normal Vision

Tritanopia

Most colour blind people are able to see things as clearly as other people but they unable to fully ‘see’ red, green
or blue light. There are different types of colour blindness and there are extremely rare cases where people are
unable to see any colour at all.
The most common form of colour blindness is known as red/green colour blindness and most colour blind people
suffer from this. Although known as red/green colour blindness this does not mean sufferers mix up red and
green, it means they mix up all colours which have some red or green as part of the whole colour. For example, a
red/green colour blind person will confuse a blue and a purple because they can’t ‘see’ the red element of the
colour purple. See the example of pink, purple and blue pen cases below to understand this effect.

Normal Vision

Deuteranopia

Similar problems can arise across the whole colour spectrum affecting all reds, greens, oranges, browns,
purples, pinks and greys. Even black can be confused as dark green or dark blue.

The effects of colour vision deficiency can be mild, moderate or severe so, for example, approximately 40% of
colour blind pupils currently leaving secondary school are unaware that they are colour blind , whilst 60% of
sufferers experience many problems in everyday life.

Statistically speaking most people with a moderate form of red/green colour blindness will only be able to identify
accurately 5 or so coloured pencils from a standard box of 24 pencil crayons. Depending upon which type of the
condition a colour blind person is suffering from they could see the set of pencil crayons similarly to the following
images.
Color blind dream

Although researchers previously believed that dreams were only black and white,
they now know that most dreams are colorful. But how do the dreams of colorblind
people look?

That depends on when they became colorblind. Because humans dream about what
they know, people who become colorblind after birth can "see" colors in their
dreams, according to "Colour Blindness: Causes and Effects" (Dalton Publishing,
2002).

However, people who are born completely colorblind and can only see their
surroundings in black, white and shades of gray, do not know what colors look like,
and therefore, their minds have no memories from which to fabricate colorful
dreams.

Complete colorblindness, a visual condition also known as total color vision

Red-green color vision defects (in which a person has trouble distinguishing between
reds and greens) are much more common and make up about 99 percent of color
vision defieiencies, according to "Colour Blindness: Causes and Effects." Among
populations with Northern European ancestry, red-green color vision defects occur in
about 8 percent of males and 0.5 percent of females, according to the NLM.

A person with a red-green color vision defect will dream in the same color set that
they see when awake. For example, in his or her dreams, the American flag will have
moss-green stripes instead of scarlet.

In the 1950s, dream researchers commonly believed that people only dreamt in
black and white, even though both previous and later dream research studies
established that dreams have color, according to a 2002 study by Eric Schwitzgebel,
a philosophy professor at the University of California at Riverside.

The growing popularity of black and white films in the 1950s as well as increased
affordability of black and white television sets may have played a role in the
phenomenon of people with full sight having colorblind dreams.

"The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of black and white film media, and
it is likely that the emergence of the view that dreams are black and white was
connected to this change in film technology," Schwitzgebel stated in his study, which
appeared in the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.

In the 1960s, as media began to shift to full color, reports of black and white dreams
became increasingly rare, showing that the things people observe during the
daytime leach into their dreamscape.

"Only very, very rarely does someone report a dream that is black and white like an
old movie," said Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who is an
expert on dreaming.. "If they're not color blind, this may be due to exposure to old
films."

Barrett notes that if you can't remember the colors in last night's dreams, that doesn't
necessarily mean that you dreamt in black and white. Some people may focus on the
colors within a dream, while others don't notice what color things were. This selective
perception of sorts is similar to how different people perceive the real world, Barrett
said.

"If I asked you to describe something that happened two days ago, you might include
no color in the incident - or you might," Barrett told Life's Little Mysteries. "If I asked
you what color someone was wearing, you might be able to tell me or notcolor just
isn't always a salient part of events. The events may be more about the interpersonal
aspect, such as navigating or trying to get somewhere, while at other times, color is
significant to whatever we're doing and noticing."