A lot of movies, especially horror movies (I’m watching one now) depict blind people as not having pupils. But my understanding, based on blind people I’ve met, is that the problem is usually in the lens or the retina, and that they have pupils the same as everyone else. Are there actually blind people out there whose eyes are 100% white, or is that purely a Hollywood invention?
Interesting! So it exists but is extremely rare.
The gold is in the comments.
Typically that depiction is due to extreme corneal edema (swelling of the front surface of your eye, which is a clear structure). As it swells (edema) it becomes opaque (white). This happens when you die (hence the creepiness) but also in some corneal diseases such as Fuchs Corneal Dystrophy
Severe cataracts?
yeah its usually portrayed as a milky white so I always took it as cataracts.
Probably that. Fortunately it’s rare in the developed world as it can be fixed by a routine operation.
It depends entirely on the cause of their blindness. Some people are blind due to underdeveloped/damaged optic nerves, some are blind due to brain trauma, some are blind due to an injury to the eyes, themselves, etc.
Some eye conditions can cause material to build up in the eye, causing a milky/cloudy appearance, and often lead to blindness. While this isn’t particularly common among blind folks, it’s usually the easiest to display visually, hence its overuse in film. There’s also the shock value of it, as it’s more visually interesting for the viewer than something like the actor wearing blackout glasses.
Yep. The standard Hollywood eyes are pretty close to how my dad’s look. Only Hollywood tends to do grey while his are a very pale blue. I didn’t actually learn he technically had brown eyes until I was in my late teens.
I used to work with a guy who was blind in one eye due to an accident. He had no pupil in that eye, but did have an iris, so it wasn’t 100% white.
Was the iris a full circle or like a ring shape around more white eye?
The white part is called the sclera, and no it did not look like there was sclera inside the iris. It was just a full iris, though it was kinda jagged towards the center where you could tell there was trauma.
