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I don't care at all that they're so open about it. They're young, it's all part of their learning process but I sense tumbleweed moments of frozen silence from family members in the room when a 'kiddie clanger' like this, is dropped. I can never think of a great retort though; my usual heavy irony tends to confuse your average five year-old.

The most truthful thing to say back to young Oliver would be: "But I don't just see pitch black"

So, I hear you ask, what do you see then? Isn't black what blind is? Don't blind people see nothing, i.e. black? A side question for you: why does 'nothing' have to be black?

Ask your average lifelong totally blind person and they won't know what black is, nor what seeing is, so you might not get the answer you desire. But being as I used to have sight, I have the ability to answer the question. I am one of the few who can really tell you. Ooh how exciting! This is a bit like asking a dead person what the afterlife is like, isn't it?

I find myself sitting back in my chair wondering whether to tease you or tell the truth. I'm currently rather drawn into telling you that blind people see a swirling black hole; one that is anchored just off the North Pole and about to swallow the planet up ... and no one but the blind know about it. Betcha that if I were to give this answer to one of the punters at my local who regularly ask me this question, they'd go off believing it like they do when I tell them guide dogs are trained in 20 minutes using ECT these days.

So many people seem curious. A quick Google search shows me that - forget education, forget accessibility and important life stuff - the number one question about blind people is: "Can the blind see in their dreams?"

What do you think? A parallel question might be: do Cambodians speak English in the workplace? Or, do seagulls ever imagine what it would be like to be a truffle hunting pig who can't find any mushrooms today? Isn't all this a bit obvious? If you don't have the experience, you can't do it. Or, you dream about what you know.

Course, the reason why people ask is because vision is by far the dominant sense and they can't grasp what having no visual knowledge is like. They believe your brain must have some pictures floating around in it somewhere even if yer peepers can't receive any. Or to put it another way: video recorders can record and playback TV programmes even if the lead attaching it to the TV set has been pulled out.

Well my friend, do the same with the ariel lead and then come back to me!?!

Why don't people ever want to know if deaf people can hear in their dreams? I believe it's because blind people are traditionally seen as mystical and are romanticised, whereas deaf people - my fellow senseless colleagues - are portrayed as saying "pardon" a lot and as comically annoying.

I suddenly feel like I'm giving a bizarre philosophy lesson rather than a, what, a biology lesson? Is this biology we're talking about? Or perhaps Religious Education? I've had more than one Christian tell me that they believe I must be seeing the kindom of heaven. At this rate, I'll be on Most Haunted next week as a metaphysics expert.

Q: So, Damon. Are your nephews right? Do you see black?
A: Hold on a minute. Stop being impatient. I have another story.

Last week I had a very painful incident. I broke my little toe, bent it right back when I walked into a box I'd forgotten was in the hallway. A couple of days later - stupid, stupid - I did the same thing again, same toe, same foot but bent it all the way to the left. What happened next was interesting. The pain was so extremely intense that my vision went completely white as I forced the tears back.

Q: So you see white? Not black?
A: That's not quite what I said.

Q: You see white when you're in pain and black when you're not?
A: No the white thing only happened for the first time very recently.

Q: So you do see black then?
A: It's not black. I don't see black. Black, in fact, would be a bit of a relief.

I rarely bother telling people about any of this. It's totally uninteresting to me and seems rather self indulgent and perhaps panders to voyeurs a little. I am, if ya like, taking a bit of a stab in the dark with this article.

What I actually 'see' is a mess - an artists pallet where the colours have run together. I see ever-changing blobs, swirls, clouds, all of differing intensity. It always seems to have a kind of deep brown/pink backdrop - a bit like when you close your eyes but can still see light through your lids.

So. Right now, on the browny-pink backdrop, over to the right I'm seeing a weirdly hammer-shaped cloud, but on it's side, constantly morphing and moving and with a yellow ... blue ...no green speckled tinge. I can't keep up with it. It's a very active pattern today and it keeps hitting me with BRILLIANT WHITE too. Frankly it's blinding and very off-putting, makes me not able to concentrate. And of course when I instinctively close my eyes to get rid of the colours and lights, they don't go away.

It's now going a mottled red in the bottom left. And I think it's morphing into what looks a little like the inside view from a misted-up bay window at the top of my lack-of-field-of-vision. Is this what you imagined?

As I say, black would be rather welcome (ooh royal blue. Brilliant heavenly blue skies interrupting my view now) I guess it's my brain trying to make up for the lack of visual input. I've always imagined that I have a kind of visual tinnitus but I've never heard anyone else talk about any of this stuff and that's why I'm writing about it today.

I wouldn't assume all blind people carry a colourful light show round in their heads, though. And of course most blind people can see a little unlike me.

When I was young I used to think that blind people should just open their eyes and stop being stupid. With that in mind, if my young nephews bring the subject up again, I'll probably go with the black thing, for the sake of ease. Or maybe tell them the main colour of the day.