Is anyone *actually* colorblind in the way the term implies?

r/

I’m sure most people can relate to stuff where kids will make up random junk in an attempt to seem “cool” or “unique”, and one of the things I used to experience was kids claiming they were colorblind. Not colorblind to its true definition, but that they couldnt see any colors (except for grey apparently). Is this a thing that actually exists, where people are entirely unable to see or differentiate between all colors? And if it is real, how common or uncommon is it?

Comments

  1. thehoneybadger1223 Avatar

    So the official term for it is Monochromacy, it does exist but it is extremely rare. A quick Google search indicated that its between 1 in 30,000 and 1 in 33,000 people who actually have this type of colour blindness. It comes in varying degrees, where they can be completely colour blind and only see in shades of grey, or they can have a washed out appearance to their vision.

    It’s caused by a few different genetic abnormalities.

  2. Kedrak Avatar

    We have three types of color sensing cells. The most common type of color blindness is just affecting one of these and it causes red and green to be a lot more similar.

    There are other types of color blindness where just one of the other cell types doesn’t work. It’s really rare but it happens that some people essentially have problems with all three and they are seeing the world in gray-scale.

  3. ntengineer Avatar

    I am red-green colorblind.

    But I used to work with a guy that was greyscale colorblind

  4. jrrybock Avatar

    It generally that they see is greyscale like an old TV, it’s just they can’t tell the difference between two colors, often red and green. It is kind of like ‘blind’. Doesn’t mean you can’t see anything, just you see very very badly… Certainly not to drive a car, machines and audiobooks because you can’t read a book…. But I worked in senior living with legally blind folk, but I come about 15 feet from them, the color of my uniform, the general shape of the ‘blob’ they see, they’ll say hi to me by name.

  5. Sardothien12 Avatar

    Im colour deficient; certain shades of blues + greys are similar to the point I’ve tripped on the footpath several times

  6. Ambitious_Excuse7741 Avatar

    My brother is color blind. Looked at his wife’s purple sweater and said “that is such a nice gray.”

  7. Comprehensive_Toe113 Avatar

    Some people have total color blindness and can only see in shades of Gray, but it’s more comment to only be colour blind to cirtain colours like green or red or blue.

  8. Comprehensive_Toe113 Avatar

    On the flip side of color blind, there’s tetrachromacy. Which means that people have MORE color receptors in the eye and can see far more colors than a normal person.

  9. Historical_Volume806 Avatar

    Fun fact since you’re interested in color-blindness. Men with color blindness (wonky colors not greyscale) are more likely to have a daughter with four types of color receptors in their eyes.

  10. ambalamps911 Avatar

    My partner is monochromatic colorblind due to being born extremely prematurely.

  11. Immediate_Yam_7733 Avatar

    Only knew one person that I think was colour blind. If you ever remember doing those wee books in school that had all the dots and different colours ? Yeah well he got to a page and didn’t see any numbers. Can’t remember what it was but it didn’t make much of an impact . Don’t know if he just didn’t see it at all or seen it different or what .

  12. tapedficus Avatar

    I’m colourblind and used to just tell people I only saw black and white because it was easier than trying to explain that certain shades of certain colours don’t look right, or what they would consider right.

    It never does stop anyone from immediately pointing to the nearest colour and asking me “what colour is THIS?”

    So yeah….I see the colours but it’s easier to say I don’t.