I saw it coming, destroying everything on the way, it was big and anonymous, it didn’t have a defined shape or conscious, it just existed and was everywhere. I could not breath, I was so scared I could not move or react, my voice was shaky and I could not defend myself. Slowly I started to get blinded, a dark cloud appeared in front of my nose, I could not see clearly the objects in my surroundings and the cloud went far beyond my eyes and covered my conscious. How could I see it in first place? Where did it come from? Why everyone here had it?

I suddenly wake up and turn to see what time it was in my clock when suddenly I lost part of my vision since the green light of the alarm shook me. The image of that amorphous object was still in my mind and it burn even stronger in that moment where the green light shocked me. My eyes got better after a while and I could see the time, 2:00 AM. I was still scared about all what happened in my dream and could not concentrate enough to fall asleep again. I have had this dream since I have memory and it always scares me to the point I only sleep a few hours a day, I decided to sit in my bed and every night and write details that may explain what this dreams are. I started to write when suddenly I remembered when I was small, I used to go and talk with the girl next door. I remembered that situation since she had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen and the blindness in my dreams remembered me about those eyes. Her eyes where blue and the color was so intense that one could not look her directly at her eyes for a long period of time without blinking. We used to play in the sand box at the park near our houses and we used to be friends. Her name… it’s not important, I just remember those eyes and that when we grew up she started to lost the color in her eyes. What seem estrange was the fact that I was the only one that believed that her eyes where losing their color, the other guys didn’t notice it. Slowly, she started to get away from our friendship to the point I cannot recognize her any more.

The words matched with the paper of my diary where I have had write those details of my dream. It’s still uncertain why I have this dreams, a details that seem important about my dreams is that apparently everyone start without any sight and I start to get blinded by that darkness. I decided to start scanning my room for details as if my problems where somewhere hiding inside those four walls. I saw my television, it have made me so happy for so long but as it make me happy it makes me blinder, every single piece of light that passes through my eyes is nothing against what I actually see. I remembered that one commercial I saw few years ago where they displayed an abstract painting with apparently no sense at all. The only thing I remember is that during that year I went every two days to Burger King even though I didn’t liked the burgers they made. Two years later I studied more carefully the commercial I constantly saw in television and suddenly in the background I saw some shades in the orange sky, it was not easy to see since the colors of the background and of the shade where pretty similar, but there it was, the phrase that made me eat garbage for so long, it said “I LOVE BURGER KING”. I could not believe all that time I lived in a shadow, all the things that could have been better than those burgers but then, suddenly the image of those eyes came to my mind. The relation was clear as water, those eyes should have been a shadow, I couldn’t recognize easily but that was there, but a shadow of what?

I turned off the light and the shadow of my hand in the paper disappeared. Then, for having a shadow, there must be an object that creates it or something else that can make it. I turned the light again and remember that her character changed too, then, the shadow in her eyes was caused by her character? Or maybe the intensity of the color was caused by her character? A dualistic idea, it was the light in her eyes or the lack of light that was caused by her character?

I took a book that I had in a table next to my bed and went searching for an answer. I found something that could help, it was the ideal of dualism stated by Parmenides of Elea that didn’t just accept the idea of two opposites but also the idea that those opposites where divided into one positive and one negative term. He stated that things like the light, the idea of what is hot and the being where positive while the darkness, the idea of what is cold and not being where negatives. Then I realize that since her character changed, the positive component of her character that was when she was young was the one that gave the color to her eyes while the character she developed was the negative that made her eyes turn lighter and lighter.

I felt glorious since I just solved that issue my mind gave me but still I didn’t know what my dreams where like they were. I turned and took a look at my clock, 2:00 AM. The light didn’t shock me this time, but then the answer came to me as the other issues where solved. The blindness was caused by the negative change that took my friend into a stranger, that same anonymous mass that is everywhere is the one that attacked my friend and now I could see more than before, that same thing that she lost and that apparently I could recognize more than she could.

She lost something of extreme importance, something that made the human something different from the rest of the animals, something special and unique. That something was herself. The feeling of that cloud entering to me came again, when it came, it didn’t make the person completely blind since in the dreams I couldn’t see clearly the objects but that was just an effect of something much worst, the lost of the self, that was caused by the same shadow, by the same immutable cloud, the same in all directions and that didn’t just make you go and eat burgers but also make you lost the power of the self, the power of taking your own decisions, the power of believing in what you want, the power of creating was lost, it was replaced with a treaty, accepted by everyone like in a contract where one didn’t read the small letters, like when you don’t know something but you still need to make a decision on what you want. That treaty is the easy path to having a life, a path full of laziness in where one just accept what the amorphous cloud wants one to do, a path in where one accept all the terms that society gives, been global.

Now I could understand why I could see it and the reason was not complicated, I could see it because the clouds didn’t went beyond my eyes, I had still the power of the self and could understand everything now, everyone had it because they accept the treaty while they grow up and just decide to don’t care about what can they be, they are just anonymous as the cloud, and that cloud was not created, it existed from the moment society developed, it was the image of the weakness of humanity to develop as a social network of individuals, it’s the invention of a easier and accepted treaty where everyone just followed the same basic principles and where everyone could live in harmony. But then it flashed again in front of my eyes. I saw it coming, destroying everything on the way, it was big and anonymous, it didn’t have a defined shape or conscious, it just existed and was everywhere. I could not breath, I was so scared I could not move or react, my voice was shaky and I could not defend myself. I turned and saw the clock, 2:01 AM. Slowly I started to get blinded, a dark cloud appeared in front of my nose, I could not see clearly the objects in my surroundings and the cloud went far beyond my eyes and covered my conscious. And that was the last time I had that dream, but it was the beginning of the reality of that dream.

Blind people who lost their vision after about age 5 continue to have visual imagery in their dreams. They see new friends, places, and things in their dreams, not simply memories they’ve retained since before they lost their sight. The fact that dreams do not reflect people’s current visual impairment reveals that the dreaming brain does not simply reproduce perceptions (albeit in a new narrative), but actually constructs things that have never been experienced while awake.

In contrast to people who lost their sight later in life, people completely blind since birth (congenitally blind) or shortly thereafter lack the rapid eye movements usually associated with dreaming. However, they do dream, and they tend to describe their dreams in the same visual language as a sighted person. When asked to elaborate, it becomes clear that the “pictures” in their heads have been created through prior experience with other senses. In dream reports made by congenitally blind people, more than half of the sensory references are to touch, smell, and taste. The rest of the sensory references are auditory.

In one study, a congenitally blind woman described a dream about sitting at a table in a nice restaurant. She knew she was at a table through kinesthetic sense—the sense mediated by feedback from organs in the muscles and tendons. She knew it was a nice restaurant because she felt the thick carpet and heard the quiet atmosphere. She had an image of the table because she had previously felt tables. Similarly, a congenitally blind woman in another study described being in a room with a device that looked like an ATM. She said she knew what it looked like from prior experience touching the buttons on an ATM.

Studies that have compared the composition, organization, and themes of the dreams of blind people and sighted people have found few differences. Blind people reported more dreams in which they had a misfortune occur during locomotion or transportation, and dreams about their guide dogs, consistent with the notion that there is continuity between dream content and waking experiences.

Imagine the recent efforts to create and valuable time for the students of Virginia Tech,
who designed a vehicle can be driven by a blind person with a disability.

Vehicles short, soil type with errors that are equipped with a detector
range of laser, an interface to voice commands, and other systems that meet the
driver that is visible next to them.

To ensure this project is the best project, not just a record of the design alone. Because ultimately,
is constant and is proving to be a pilot with disabilities who are blind, but it is an
unfortunate no knowledge of what you are going and later, the car of the home team. And, of course, I hope that this noble project continues work later in the production of vehicles that are appropriate and useful to everyone.

1.Stand a few feet away from the person you think needs help. Everyone wants her personal space respected. Even if she can’t see you, she can smell you, hear you, or sense that you are there. If the person is blind and using a guide dog, be sure not to pet the dog. You may be aching to nuzzle its neck, but this dog is working and should not be distracted.

2.Offer your assistance. Be straightforward. Say, “Would you like some help crossing the street?” If she says no, that is her prerogative. Be polite.

3.If the person would like help, ask her how you can best assist. Don’t make any assumptions about what would be useful. Never grab the person’s arm. She might just want you to walk beside her or carry her bag.

4.When you are safely to the other side of the street, ask if she needs any further assistance. You may ask, “Are you all set?” The person may appreciate assistance carrying heavy bags to her home. If the person is blind, she may want you to describe potential hazards in the vicinity or provide additional support.

As additional information, only individuals who are blind may carry white canes. In most countries, the law requires drivers to yield the right of way when they see a blind person’s extended white cane.

2.Speed of light = 3*10 power 8 then, Speed of darkness = ?

3.who was the first person to look at a coe and say , ‘I think I’ll squeeze these pink dangly things and drink whatever comes out of it’

4.Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

5.If mars had earthquakes , what wouls they be called? Marsquakes?.

6.What does OK actually mean?

7.If a person owns a piece of land , does he own that piece all the way till the down of earth?

8.Who copyrighted the copyright symbol?

9.Why are you IN a movie but ON tv?

10.What do blind people see in their dreams?

Helen Keller with her tutor Anne Sullivan; via Wikipedia

Miss Sullivan herself had been blind, but had regained her sight through surgery. She finger-spelled the names of familiar objects into her student’s hand. Helen enjoyed this “finger play,” but she didn’t understand until the famous moment when Sullivan spelled “w-a-t-e-r” while pumping water over her hand.

One day Anne led Helen to the water pump and pumped water on her hand. She spelled the letters W-A-T-E-R as the water ran over Helen’s hand. She did this over and over again. At last it dawned on Helen that the word “water” meant the water which she felt pouring over her hand. This opened up a whole new world for her. She ran everywhere asking Anne the name of different things and Anne would spell the words in her hand. This was the key which unlocked the world for her.

The following video has a rare footage of Sullivan and Keller. In this footage Sullivan shows the way how Helen Keller learned to talk. The final line of this footage, “I am not DUMB now!” is very touching.

Helen’s College Education

By 1890, Keller was living at Perkins Institute along with her tutor Sullivan. She had already mastered Braille and learned how to use a typewriter. At Perkins, she learnt Greek, French and Latin.

She did very well in the next year’s entrance exams and was finally admitted to the class of 1900. During her years in college, she wrote her memoir, “The Story of My Life”.

In 1904, she graduated from Radcliffe College with a honours Bachelor of Arts degree, helped by Anne Sullivan who was always by her side, interpreting lectures and class discussion to her.

Helen Keller’s Campaigns

Helen then dedicated her life to public service. She started on her extensive fund raising campaigns for the American Foundation for the Blind using her new home as a base. 

She traveled around the world, visiting many famous personalities such as the Emperor of Japan, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill etc, effectively helping to raise public awareness on the issues faced by the disabled. She delivered many lectures to improve the conditions for the blind and deaf-blind. She spoke out for women’s rights and pacifism.

Anne died in 1936. To commemorate the death of her friend, Helen started to work on Anne’s biography, only to lose it to a fire in 1946 when it was almost completed. She rewrote it again and in 1955, published “Teacher : Anne Sullivan Macy”.

On June 1, 1968, after Helen died peacefully in her sleep, she was buried next to Anne at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Keller’s Famous Quotations

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.

It’s a terrible thing to see, and have no vision!

We can do anything we want to do, if we stick to it long enough.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

What I am looking for is not “out there,” it is in me.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you will never see the shadow.

Reference

http://www.perkins.org/vision-loss/helen-keller/

The device, with a radius of 1,000 times more powerful than the solar radiation at ground level, marked by the manufacturer as “the most dangerous laser ever created.” For this reason, consumer protection authorities are worried about the marketing model III Spyder Pro Arctic issued warnings against its use.

Along with the possibility that the blind, to burn a person and cause cancer, the creator of the product in Hong Kong, Wicked Lasers, admits a moment of penetration of such a laser beam into the cockpit of a plane can spark a disaster. In addition, any device is not particularly cost prohibitive, it can be purchased abroad, for an amount less than 200 euros. Even the manufacturer’s website stated: “The phrase” extremely dangerous “is an understatement of a watt of power of this ray.

Because lasers are manufactured in Asia, and where laws do not prohibit their sale to the general public, institutions regulating the commercial standards of other countries that do not have to stop selling them via the Internet.

                                How Can I help?

My dearly loved father lived until he was 93 years old, and I was always very proud of him. I remember one day on the way to visit him, I got a puncture. I did not have a man in the car with me, only my restless brood of children, who couldn’t wait to get to the seaside. So I ‘phoned Dad to explain I would be late.

He was 85 years old at the time, but did that stop him, oh no, out he came, dressed in his shorts and panama hat, layed down in the road, and changed my tyre for me. He looked like a man of fifty, with his silver grey hair, and fresh complexion, which hinted at a slight seaside tan on the rare occasions he didn’t wear his hat.

I thought Dad was invincible. He had a knee replacement when he was 87, but was soon walking again, and out with the dog every day, just as he always had been.

But when he reached ninety everything changed. His sight started to go, he slept in his chair quite a lot, he lost weight, but still his wit was untouched, his sense of humour carried on, but to my great distress, although he tried to hide it, he became totally blind. He used to feel for his cup, and one day when I came in the room, he thought I was my brother, so I knew, but I also knew that the proud man that he was would never admit it, as his philosophy right up until he died was,” It will get better soon.”

He went into hospital with a chest infection towards the last few months of his life, and I watched him go downhill, and I tried to help , I pretended life was normal because that is what he wanted.  I helped him with his daily care, and we joked that he had done it for me, and now it was my turn to do it for him.

My dad stopped being the person I knew, he became an  old bent  little man, who didn’t know what time of day it was, and when he passed away peacefully at the age of 93, I rejoiced for him, because his life had become a living hell. I will always remember him for his strong character and sense of fun, and not as he was at the end of his life.  RIP DAD.   xxxxx

As I walk through school, I notice that we, as students, suffer from limitations. We all don’t have the same privileges as the adults in the building do. Teachers and staff make sure that there is equality and fairness in the environment. We as students can vaguely debate those regulations, but we most likely wouldn’t be guaranteed triumph. People suffer from disabilities, both physical and mental. Some people are dyslexic, which therefore, disables them from reading fluently. The blind suffer from an immobilization of the sense of sight. Children are also limited by their parents’ rules, such as bedtimes and curfews. That’s the way society has set up itself. Higher authority triumphs.

Handicapped people are very limited. The physically handicapped have difficulty with walking and moving, or, in a more general statement, transportation. Mentally handicapped individuals are limited in their acquirement of knowledge and understanding, as they don’t understand the basics and guidelines of things as much as the average person does. Both of these groups of people require assistance from others to thrive throughout a harsh environment. The government, peers, and assistants are all helpful assets to those with limitations.

Of course, society has a great number of limitations, such as time limits. Society lives around an agenda and this highly affects the organization of meetings and gatherings, rather the world itself! Time limitations cause problems in social lives, meetings, and communication. Time runs the world, and limits it at the same time. Time limits one from doing what they wish, unless they are prepared. (Such as giving this great essay in on time to one of the bestest teachers ever!) J

Well, anyway, you would think having these limitations would regress life, but many accommodations have been made in my community to those with limitations. In a mall, a sociable and loud place, escalators and elevators have been placed to provide an alternative source of switching levels, rather than the stairs, for those who are handicapped. Ramps have been placed, such as the ones at Baldi MS, to aid the physically disabled in proceeding to their destination. I have mentioned before that the disability of blindness is a tragic one. The adaptation of Braille has been founded to aid the blind. It is a system of communication using your sense of touch to “read” words. Little bumps or dots are placed on surfaces that blind people depict by touching, and translating the “language” to words. These little dots are found on remote controls, elevators and even phones!

As my limitations aren’t as tragic as others have, I still do suffer from a minority of limits. A very “popular” limit that I undergo is a curfew and bedtime. This limit is made by my parents, a higher authority. I could dispute this restriction, but I most likely would not come up on top, due to my parents’ higher authority over me K. I am competing with my parents in a Man vs. Man situation. In other scenarios, a Man vs. Nature conflict takes me on; for instance, my height. I am an averagely sized teenager, neither too tall nor small. My height is limited, due to something I cannot alter, nature.

The more you ponder about limitations, the more sympathy you gain for others who endure their limitations. For you to withstand limitations, you must have 3 fundamental properties: Self-confidence, perseverance and willpower. With self-confidence, you will believe in yourself, and you would psychologically think that you have the power and strength to overcome your limitations. With perseverance, you are a pioneer. You keep on trudging and trying and persistently reaching for your goals. And of course, with willpower, you would have that strength to overcome your limitations. All of these attributes could be applied to anyone, and applied to any limitation. A limitation is a limitation. No matter to what degree it is. As Elbert Hubbard said, “Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.” (Hubbard, Elbert http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_limitations.html) We all have potential and limitations.

Stem cells have been used in many countries around the world. Why not here?? There are many instances where stem cells have helped those who were blind, paralyzed, etc. The majority of those in the medical field, here in this country, say that there is no proof that stem cells work. There is a young girl who was born blind, went to China and had stem cell therapy with acupuncture, and now she can see well enough to get her driver’s license (www.cbs4denver.com). It is understood that stem cells may not work for all, but if it isnt tried, how will they know.

If other countries are using stem cells, why arent we?? Is our country so caught up with what those who have no idea what is at stake think, that we are willing to let such an opportunity pass by?

We have women who are having abortions everyday. Why not use these embryos or placentas?  I don’t necessarily agree with abortion, but this is an opportunity which should not be passed up. There have been families who have had additional children so that one child could have a bone marrow transplant, a kidney transplant, etc. Is the use of stem cells so much different?

There are many countries using stem cells now. China, Germany, Karachi, just to name a few.

Why are our medical professionals saying there are years ahead before stem cell treatment can be used on humans? Why do people have to wait for a chance at a better life? Why don’t we learn from what has already been accomplished?