Clearly my eyes aren’t* open and I cannot take in external visual stimuli in my dreams, however I experience them similar to the visual experience in my minds eye or imagination or whathaveyou. Similarly I feel like I experience something akin to touch or feel (like the occasional flying or falling dream, or the feel of grass or something).
I don’t recall having anything similar to smell or sound in a dream though (except occasionally hearing a real sound while waking up that wasn’t actually part of the dream) What’s your experience?
For me dreams are just like an alternate life. I usually have entire like memory sets in them. Ill be in some other world sometimes similar to ours sometimes really different and ill know things about my life there. Going about it as if it is my life. I never know its a dream i have no memory of my real life while im in them. I have all my senses. I have even eaten things in dreams and woken up wishing those foods were real. One that sticks with me is this really spicy drink. It was an amber color and tasted warm, and spiced but also sweet. It was very good. I can experience most things i would while awake but if its too intense ill wake up.