WHEN THE BLIND LEARN TO SEE.

WHEN THE BLIND LEARN TO SEE. I read a wonderful book, PILGRIM AT TINKER’S CREEK, by Annie Dillard, soon after it came out in the 1970’s. In one chapter (link here), she recounted what cataract patients who had been blind from birth experienced after surgery, relying on a book from the 1930’s by Marius von Senden. Annie Dillard described a number of moving experiences that I have never forgotten. One patient “saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness.” Another said that “he saw an extensive field of light, in which everything appeared dull, confused, and in motion. He could not distinguish objects.” One patient described a human hand as “something bright and then holes.”