By Emma Bracken

Sophie Trist’s most common dreams are what she describes as a cycle of sleep-induced confusion. She starts suddenly awake, trying to make sense of whatever dreamscape she was falling off or running from, before once again losing sense of the world around her. The world feels unsteady and slow, and the clear consciousness of morning seems to still be out of reach. It is in this movement that she realizes she is still dreaming, repeating the cycle until somewhere along the way, she does actually wake up to face the day. Getting up, the day ahead of Trist will carry on much like any regular college student — eating breakfast, going to class and working on assignments — but her disability sets apart her waking life from most. She is blind.

Sighted people often wonder about the dreams of blind people, and how the nonvisual world can translate into tangible dreamscapes. For Trist, being blind may make her dreams slightly different from the ones many of us are familiar with, but they reflect her physical reality just as all of ours do. As a graduate student and instructor here at the University of Arkansas, Trist’s dreams often recount classroom scenarios and deadlines. Alongside the typical school-related stress dreams, such as taking an exam you are unprepared for or showing up late, Trist has other obstacles that others may never consider. She noted that one dream she has had is showing up to teach and having no braille materials for the lesson.

Many of us have similar or identical types of dreams, though we don’t know why, exactly. There is something about our dreams that seem to be universal. Though sleep and rest are an inevitable and relatable part of human life, they look different for everyone, especially those with physical disabilities. Conversations surrounding sleep can also bring forth an array of prodding questions and misunderstandings. As Trist navigates the world of academia and 

Sleep is a profoundly unique and yet wholly relatable human experience. One aspect of human sleep that seems to be universal is our tendency to dream. For reasons still largely unknown to us, our minds create worlds of their own as our bodies lay still.  Dreams, though sometimes wild and nonsensical, can manifest into what we think about and hope for during the day. Throughout the entire etymological history of the word “dream,” these different definitions have been intertwined. 

It seems that both when sleeping and awake, humans are predisposed to aspiration and optimism. It is an inherent side-effect of our intelligence, a desire to plan for and ruminate about what the future could look like. We dream, both when asleep or awake, about the places we want to go, the love we wish to find, or the problems we know we are soon going to have to confront and solve. 

Much like the physicality of sleep, the way that people go about setting goals and finding avenues to achieve them is complex and colorful across the board. There is no one road to success, and even if there were, it is important for us to remember the varying levels of access we were born into. People are born with different physical abilities as much as we are born with different interests or personality traits. 

In the realm of sleep, people with certain disabilities, such as visual impairment, are the subject of questioning and misunderstandings from able-bodied people. Trist explained that she is often asked if she and other blind people sleep with their eyes closed. Trist explained that this sort of question has no answer, because the spectrum of experiences in the blind community is so wide. Trist, who has been blind since birth and has prosthetic eyes, notes that she does not close them when sleeping. 

“I don’t expect people, especially young people, to know a lot about blindness,” Trist said. “I know that I’m probably the first blind person that you’ve had an extended interaction with. A lot of things I will take on good faith, people just don’t know and are asking in the spirit of curiosity.”

Another phenomenon of human perception is the idea of colors and the distinct possibility that we could all perceive them differently. For the visually impaired, particularly those who are entirely blind, color is another source of questioning from sighted people.

Trist explained that color to her is more of a concept that is intertwined with the emotional and cultural context of the words we use to describe them. For example, green inspires ideas of growth and rejuvenation, blue generates the feel of water and calmness, and red is hot and passionate. Without a visual frame of reference for understanding color, Trist connects the same connotations that we all do when it comes to defining color. 

“When I dream, I dream the same way that I experience this world, which is mainly sound, touch and words,” Trist said. “So I don’t dream in color because my brain was never wired to have that kind of input.”

Though the visual experience is different, Trist explained that her dreams are not much different from anyone else’s. They are often confusing or nonsensical, where details shift and slide without reason. She also experiences the same type of first-day-of-school anxiety dreams and other typical nightmares. 

As a creative person studying fiction writing, Trist is also able to use her dreams as a source of creativity when it comes to her work. Sometimes, the ideas that float through her mind at night can be grounds for a great fiction piece. 

“I have had moments where a dream, by an indirect process, has been incorporated in a story or provided a kernel of inspiration,” Trist said. 

Though our sleep patterns and dream types may look different, Trist explained that our takeaways from dreams are often very similar. It is important for us to learn about the ways that people are similar to us despite our differences, and understand the varying experiences of human life all around us. Blind people are often the target of ignorance when it comes to sleep and dreaming. It is possible that this lack of understanding could manifest into disbelief or doubt when it comes to aspirational success as well. 

When it comes to dreams, the sort that are scribbled into notebook margins or pasted onto a vision board, we all have different approaches to goal-setting. Some of us want rigid structure and an idealized list of steps to achieving our goals, while others would rather have their goals in the back of their minds as they allow life to naturally progress them forward. Dreams are at the center of our lives and experiences, both in terms of when we sleep and as we plan for our futures.

“I think that it’s interesting that dreams refer to both of these things, because I think they spring from similar parts of your mind,” Trist said. “When you’re asleep, your mind comes up with all of these wacky scenarios. But aspirations, at least for me, also come from a place of imagination.” 

Trist explained that her aspirations stem from ideas of what she could be and what the world could be, both stemming from creativity and journeys we take through our own imaginations. Whether or not these things are happening consciously seems not so important. Because our experiences of both types of dreaming appear so intertwined, our misconceptions and judgments surrounding them are often as well. The experience of having a disability, as Trist explained, is wildly complex and differs from person to person immeasurably. 

According to the World Health Organization, about 16% of the world’s population have physical disabilities. This is a wide spectrum of different experiences, from deafness to arthritis to cerebral palsy. There is no monolithic experience of disability, as there are so many ways our abilities are varied and fit into the categories we have created to better understand them. However, people with any type of disability can relate in the fact that the world is built inherently for the able-bodied, and oftentimes they are expected to keep up without assistance or accessibility measures.  

Our fast-paced world is not designed for differences in ability and pace or carving space for accessibility. Our society is built on competition, and those with disabilities are often left behind rather than uplifted. In a collegiate environment, there can be a lot of pressure and standards to live up to. Just the act of being a student seems reliant on the similar sort of competition and overworking culture of our economic system. 

Trist uses braille materials to work with the virtual classroom structure we have in place on campus, but the possibility of not having access to those resources has manifested into a nightmare for her. Beyond braille for the visually impaired, it is crucial to have a variety of accessibility measures in place across campus to allow students and staff of all abilities to succeed.

There is some effort on behalf of the university to create accommodating spaces for those with disabilities. Elaine Belcher, associate director of administrative services at the Center for Educational Access, works with students to accommodate their needs through a variety of programs and services. Belcher shared that according to the National Center for Education Statistics, around 21% of undergraduate students reported having a disability. 

There is a clear need for resources such as the CEA across all educational institutes in the country, but there is also always room for improvement in our larger community, and even in our interpersonal relationships. Given that the NCES statistics only account for reported cases of disabilities, and the CEA can only provide for students who reach out for help, there is an entire population of people struggling but keep silent about it due to the stigmatized relationship with physical health we uphold in America.

As students work toward achieving their goals and dreams on campus, the CEA provides avenues to help lead students with disabilities along that path. Belcher encourages students to reach out to the CEA even if they are not sure if they qualify for accommodations. The definition of a disability, because of its complexity, can often be warped or narrowed. But when it comes to accessing dreams, and finding ways to mold them into reality, sometimes challenging the structure you are stuck in is an important first step. 

The world of course is not always willing to form itself around an individual’s needs. This sort of rhetoric is sometimes perpetuated against accommodation efforts. People demand others to fit themselves into some semblance of what we define as the status quo, even if it is physically impossible for some. The fallacy of this type of logic is that physical disabilities are not a one-in-a-million experience but nearly one in four. In order for us to uphold values of success, aspirations and making our way in the world, creating accessible pathways is a necessity. 

Nena Chadwick, president of the National Federation of the Blind Arkansas, explained the necessity of organizations such as hers to not only support the blind population of the region but also educate its sighted community. As someone who experienced going blind later in life rather than being born without sight, she understands the differing levels of understanding and acceptance when it comes to blindness. A large part of making that progress is understanding that everyone’s abilities and understandings of the world are different.

“We make sure that we meet them where they are at, not where we think they should be,” Chadwick said. 

Chadwick explained that dreams represent finding ways to do all of the same things that sighted people can do, even if they look different. 

“Dreams are having the freedom of being independent and not having to struggle with barriers such as the websites that are not accessible, or taking care of our health with medical devices that are not set up for the blind,” Chadwick said. 

Accommodations are necessary in order to allow our community to thrive, and give equal opportunity and assistance to the disabled population. Everyone regardless of ability shares the need to sleep, and in that experience our minds conjure up the dreams that fuel our thoughts and aspirations during the daytime. The difference in the manifestation of those dreams into reality and where we are able to go once we wake up, and how easy it is to navigate the complex world we live in. The dreams of disabled people are equally as bright, expansive and realistic, if we can create an accessible and open community. For Trist, one way of shaping the community into a more accessible space is by writing disabled characters into her fiction and finding ways to create representation for disabled people to feel seen, and for able-bodied people to learn about their experiences.

If someone were to paint a picture of the dreams of our community, there would be more colors than anyone would be able to process. Regrowth, peace and intensity, all mix together and help us understand not just what we all are aspiring toward but what we need. In examining the similarities and differences in our abilities and desires, it becomes increasingly clear that there is value in that natural born curiosity instilled in us all, stirring empathy within. Understanding each other is the first step to providing for each other, the birthplace of dreams that inspire creativity for everyone to work towards a better, more accessible community together.