Sight is our primary sense that enables us to navigate safely and efficiently, so it's natural that many people believe sight loss would be terrifying.

The fear of blindness has led to several myths and misconceptions about the condition. In Mental Floss's video, "16 Myths about Blindness," host Josh Sundquist explains it's a myth that most people who are legally blind are totally blind. Only 18 percent of visually impaired people are legally blind, a term which means your vision must be 20/200 or less. Moreover, only 10 percent of those legally blind are totally blind.

Read: How Blind People 'See' The World

Total blindness is not what we see when we close our eyes; it means seeing nothing, not seeing black. The vast majority of people with some visual impairment can at least see some color or at least tell the difference between light and dark. Total blindness, also known as no light perception, or NLP by definition, means the person can't see light or color, including the color black.

It's also a misconception that blind people do not dream. They have dreams about all the same things as other people, such as social interactions, successes, failures, and even really weird ones just like sighted people. People with total blindness have dreams that they experience as a narrative by using senses other than sight.

In fact, a Danish study found that totally blind people had four times as many nightmares as sighted people. In the same study, researchers asked three groups of people to track their dreams — those with sight, limited sight, and totally blind. The totally blind participants were three times more as likely to report tasting things, and twice as likely to experience smells in their dreams.

When it comes to blindness, there's more than meets the eye.

Click on Mental Floss' video to dispel other myths and misconceptions about blindness.

See Also:

Blind People Can Learn To See Again With Hard Work And Retinal Implant

Hoping To Cure Blindness, Scientists Develop ‘Mini Retinas’ From Stem Cells