The Blind Museum

May 27, 2008

Today I went to the Blind Museum in Holon. It was SOO cool. It simulated what life would be like if I was blind. My friends and I had to make a special reservation because we needed a tour in English.
On the tour, we went “on a boat ride,” “to the shuk(market),” “crossed the street,” and listened to music all in pitch pitch black, so even if I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything. It was cool – I had to use my imagination the whole time to visualize where I was and what I was doing. Later, I realized that my blind tour guide, Mayeir, would not even be able to imagine what the boat looks like because he has never seen a real boat.-

The most interesting part was at the end when we had time to just ask our tour guide questions. He has been blind since he was born because he was born prematurely and some type of oxygen imbalance messed up his sight. We asked about colors, like what do they mean to him. He told us that when someone says “red” he thinks of strawberries, wine, and tomatoes, but he doesn’t really know what red means. Isn’t that crazy? New technology has made it possible for Mayeir to have a device that tests the color of a shirt or pants to help him pick his outfit out in the morning.
Another cool thing is that he has dreams at night, but they include sounds and smells, but no images! He doesn’t know what anything looks like, so how can his dreams have images in them? I never thought about that before.
It was an "eye-opening" experience.