Rebecca A Withey: Do you dream in sign or sound? (BSL)

I was in a darkened hall. It felt like some kind of celebration. The lighting was dim and I was in the midst of a crowd. People were swaying and suddenly out of nowhere a voice sang out crystal clear and a smile grew on my face.

I recognised the tune. It was a band I loved back in the late 90s and the singer had such a distinctive voice.

I sang along to every word, excitedly waiting for the melody to reach its crescendo and the beat to kick in. As the beat pounded, I danced joyfully, viscerally enjoying the tones and notes I could clearly hear. It felt normal and, more to the point, the music felt delightful.

Then I woke up.

I don’t often get dreams like that but when I do, the memory of the music playing is so vivid and clear that it stays on my mind for days after.

Perhaps this is typical in individuals who have become deaf later; that the memory of hearing sound still resides in your subconscious. It creeps in when you least expect it and the memory of certain sounds or songs can bring back a whole range of feelings.

Nowadays, enjoying music isn’t such an easy experience and several factors can affect how enjoyable it is for me.

Firstly, it depends greatly on how my hearing aids respond to the sound being played. Do they amplify a particular tone too much? Do they cut out completely? And secondly, a huge factor is whether or not the cacophony of tinnitus decides to kick in too, thus ruining the experience!

When I went to a concert a few years ago to watch the band I heard in my dream, I left feeling incredibly disheartened. On stage I could see my childhood idols dancing and singing away but the music left me feeling…nothing.

It was just noise, blaring out. There was no distinction between the vocals and the rest of the music. It was just One. Big. Mess.

In another music infused dream, an 80s ballad poured into my mind. It was Berlins “You Take My Breath Away.”

Once again, the experience was clear as anything – the melody gentle and haunting and the drum beat fitting perfectly in the background.

Yet when the song played in real life at a dance competition I attended, I couldn’t recognise it for toffee. It was just… blah.

Yet subconsciously, music still makes a lot of sense to me and I guess this is why it appears in my dreams.

That said, I also dream in sign. Not only British Sign Language, but international sign too! One memory I have is of a dream where I found myself in a Scandinavian country conversing in International Sign, with great confidence – something that would probably make me feel a bit apprehensive in real life!

Yet for the most part of my dreams there’s no formal language, it’s just feelings. It’s as though words are telepathically sent between me and the other personas in the dream without sign or sound.

I asked a few deaf friends whether they dream in sign or sound and I got a mixed response. Some said they had never dreamed in sound (probably due to never hearing sound anyway) whilst others said they don’t recall dreaming in a particular language at all. Dreams feel more visual to them, with scenes and places.

I find the dream world fascinating and the content of them tells me an awful lot about my psyche and what makes up my identity.

Dreams with sign and scenes involving my hearing aids and such affirm that I am, of course, a deaf person and a sign language user and I do have a strong sense of my deaf identity.

Yet my dreams which are sprinkled with music and emotive sound take me back to the first half of my childhood where I was immersed in a musical, hearing world. That part of me is also an integral part of who I am.

Has this ever happened to you? Do you dream in sign or sound? 😊

Rebecca Anne Withey is a freelance writer with a background in Performing Arts & Holistic health. She is also profoundly deaf, a sign language user and pretty great lipreader. She writes on varied topics close to her heart in the hope that they may serve to inspire others.