tongue vision

Report from ABC news

Mike Ciarciello has been blind since birth but says that in his dreams he can actually see.

"I have had dreams where I have been flying, you know, like in the air. I am not even bumping into any obstacles whatsoever. I am actually free, in my dreams," he said. His dreams are closer to reality than you might imagine. He is about to participate in an experiment in which he will "see" by using his tongue.

At the University of Montreal, researcher Daniel Chabat prepared Ciarciello to walk for the first time through an obstacle course without his cane. Chabat began by mounting a small camera on Ciarciello's forehead. The camera sends electrical impulses about what it sees to a small grid placed on his tongue.

"It's a concept in which you replace a sense that was lost by another one that is there," said Maurice Ptito, the neuropsychologist supervising the study. "They sense the world through their tongue, and that gives them the feeling of seeing. You don't see with your eyes. You see with your brain."

read about the Tongue Vision project