9 ms·

What always interests me with stories of people hearing or seeing for the first time in their life, what is it like to gain a new sense? One would think that g

What always interests me with stories of people hearing or seeing for the first time in their life, what is it like to gain a new sense? One would think that growing up with a sense is integral to its processing (and filtering) and the sudden introduction of a sense later in life would come with all sorts of side effects.

stronglikedan 2y ago
If I could just finally achieve a true kundalini awakening, then I could tell you.
noman-land 2y ago
There is an entire class of YouTube video of the first moments that people see color, or hear, and it is absolutely, without question, the most joyous and wonderful class of video out there. Just so many happy tears. Little kids hearing their mother's voice for the first time. Friends seeing color for the first time after being given corrective glasses as a gift. Highly recommended watching.
- delecti 2y ago
  Unfortunately most of those videos about the glasses are basically staged. Some of those companies have gotten in trouble for making false claims.
  - HumblyTossed 2y ago
    It truly is sad if that is the case that those videos are staged, but, anecdotally, I worked in the eye glass business (lab manager) to pay for college back in the day and I assure you, I have personally seen babies see their parents for the first time clearly and there was plenty of tears to go around.
    - delecti 2y ago
      Yeah, to be clear I was specifically referring to videos of people reacting to the glasses that supposedly let colorblind people see color. I think EnChroma is the big name in that space. I didn't specify "color correcting", because that was the only kind of glasses mentioned in the GP comment. Normal glasses that correct refractive vision issues are obviously real, and great, I'm certainly a big fan of mine. And while I've never seen it in person, videos of babies seeing through refractive correction glasses are adorable every time.
  - noman-land 2y ago
    Wow I had no idea. I didn't realize it was possible to become even more cynical about the bullshit people will get up to for a couple bucks.
- jeffwass 2y ago
  As the father of a deaf girl who had cochlear implant surgery a few years ago, I despise these videos for misleadingly representing the reality of the situation for most patients. Those videos you mention are designed to invoke “happy-feelies” to maximise engagement and monetisation, nothing more. The doctors warned us not to expect any reaction in our daughter like in those videos. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for just how difficult my daughter’s post-implantation journey was. It took many months before the implants provided even remotely similar benefit as the tiny amount of benefit her older hearing aids could give. She had to learn to hear all over again from scratch. This affected her self-confidence, her friendships, her schooling, and was a very difficult time for her. Those turn-on videos you mention are overly saccharine to make you feel good while having nothing to do with the reality of the situation for almost all cases.
  - noman-land 2y ago
    Wow I truly had no idea about this. Thanks for sharing your personal experience and setting the record straight. I wish you and your family nothing but positivity and good luck in life. Every day I discover a new way that humanity has disappointed me.
  - kiwijamo 2y ago
    As someone who has had cochlear implant surgery myself, that is 100% true. Luckily as a member of the Deaf community I knew full well what to expect so I didn't expect to hear straight away and just looked forward to taking my time learning how to hear. Even now I still can't hear 100% (and will never be able to) but that is fine as I still use our national sign language which will always be the language I can communicate best in. It took a bit of adjustment for the hearing members of my family. Even though I kept explaining I won't be able to hear perfectly from day 1, it was still a shock for some who realised the switch on was only the start of an incredibly long journey which I am still on. Ironically, only those who had deep involvement in the Deaf/sign language community understood exactly the reality of cochlear implants -- showing that even with medical advancements, the Deaf community is still an important part of any Deaf person's life and sign language will remain a useful toolkit for all Deaf people.
toast0 2y ago
I had a chronic stuffed nose into like the 2nd grade. So when I started taking steroids for my nose, I was able to really smell for the first time, and started noticing cooking smells. Overall, kind of meh, missing out on smell is mostly not a big deal. Smell is useful to detect odorants added to dangerous gasses and to know when the cooking is done if your smoke detector is too far from the kitchen, and it can help detect spoiled food (but visual inspection usually works too), but like I don't feel like my life was worse before I could smell, and there definitely wasn't a big step change improvement.
- rantymcrant 2y ago
  I think someone going from normal smell ability to no smell ability might feel differently. One of the top joys in my life is eating and a large portion of that experience is smell. Take it away and I'd expect to lose a lot of what I enjoy. Not just as I eat it but even before, the smells of prep. Smelling garlic being fried or the stink of shrimp paste knowing delicious things are arriving soon. The smell of baking bread that makes my mouth water. Etc.... Another example which might seem the opposite for most. I don't personally understand the appeal of stinky tofu (yet). (all over China but most of my experience with it were Taiwan). To me it tastes like a savory tofu dish where someone set a bowl of steaming hot feces on plate next to you while I you eat. In other words, to me, nothing is added by the smell. Take it away and it would be a standard savory tofu dish. But, all of my Taiwanese friends crave this stuff and I think the smell is part of it.
1970-01-01 2y ago
NYT has an excellent summary on it. Life becomes very hard when they try to use their new sense in any meaningful way: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/books/review/comnig-to-our-senses-susan-barry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/books/review/comnig-to-ou...
- iLoveOncall 2y ago
  This is not at all a summary, it's a book review and it is based on 4 hand-picked examples. I wouldn't read anything into it.
  - 1970-01-01 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem#Current_research_on_human_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem#Current_r...
    - iLoveOncall 2y ago
      Not sure what's that supposed to show? n = 5 and the results just 5 days after the first survey were extremely positive.
burnished 2y ago
I started smoking as a teenager and almost entirely lost my sense of smell. I later spent years working in cafes and bars and did a lot of food and beverage tastings where I used my limited sense of smell to the best of my ability and got pretty good at it. Eventually I met my favorite person, who didn't smoke, so I quit and over the course of the following weeks it felt like I was regaining my sense of smell with owed interest. I found out my city smells like shit and piss, flowers can have powerful aromas you smell from some distance, and some smells had become physically distressing to me. At one point I went to my favorite person's house, commented that it smelled like old grapes when they opened the door, and found out they had burnt a scented candle called champagne dream hours ago. At the height of it I thought I would eventually learn to smell the future. I find I filter more now but I still find a lot of stronger smells to be deeply unpleasant and I don't recall being sensitive like this as a child. I learned to identify some smells and relate the experience to others but my notes tended to be very basic, especially compared to a friend who was working on his level two sommelier test (who was ruthlessly empirical in his epicureanism so I believe wasn't bullshiting the wine snobbery).
- tomaskafka 2y ago
  Wow! There is a great gag in latest Star Trek where Spock reveals that Vulcans need to medically suppress their smell near humans because we just stink to their sensitive noses.
  - TecoAndJix 2y ago
    Here is another reference from Enterprise with T'pol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYsVBaYNSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYsVBaYNSU
    - Izkata 2y ago
      It's a recurring thing in Enterprise, Archer's pet dog Porthos also bothers T'Pol at one point. I'm not sure but I think Enterprise was the one that introduced this aspect of Vulcans.
  - 2y ago
squigz 2y ago
I have extreme vision loss, and the idea of gaining full vision has always scared me a little. It seems like such a huge change in my perception of the world would be... jarring. Of course, I still would. It just makes me a bit nervous.
- dclowd9901 2y ago
  This must be a similar feeling to the feeling of being a parent and the thought of hearing your kid talk for the first time. For some reason, with my kids, it was partly excitement and partly dread. I can’t explain why. It’s something like… it’s such an overwhelming thing to imagine that it’s frightening.

stronglikedan 2y ago

If I could just finally achieve a true kundalini awakening, then I could tell you.

noman-land 2y ago

There is an entire class of YouTube video of the first moments that people see color, or hear, and it is absolutely, without question, the most joyous and wonderful class of video out there. Just so many happy tears. Little kids hearing their mother's voice for the first time. Friends seeing color for the first time after being given corrective glasses as a gift. Highly recommended watching.

delecti 2y ago
Unfortunately most of those videos about the glasses are basically staged. Some of those companies have gotten in trouble for making false claims.
- HumblyTossed 2y ago
  It truly is sad if that is the case that those videos are staged, but, anecdotally, I worked in the eye glass business (lab manager) to pay for college back in the day and I assure you, I have personally seen babies see their parents for the first time clearly and there was plenty of tears to go around.
  - delecti 2y ago
    Yeah, to be clear I was specifically referring to videos of people reacting to the glasses that supposedly let colorblind people see color. I think EnChroma is the big name in that space. I didn't specify "color correcting", because that was the only kind of glasses mentioned in the GP comment. Normal glasses that correct refractive vision issues are obviously real, and great, I'm certainly a big fan of mine. And while I've never seen it in person, videos of babies seeing through refractive correction glasses are adorable every time.
- noman-land 2y ago
  Wow I had no idea. I didn't realize it was possible to become even more cynical about the bullshit people will get up to for a couple bucks.
jeffwass 2y ago
As the father of a deaf girl who had cochlear implant surgery a few years ago, I despise these videos for misleadingly representing the reality of the situation for most patients. Those videos you mention are designed to invoke “happy-feelies” to maximise engagement and monetisation, nothing more. The doctors warned us not to expect any reaction in our daughter like in those videos. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for just how difficult my daughter’s post-implantation journey was. It took many months before the implants provided even remotely similar benefit as the tiny amount of benefit her older hearing aids could give. She had to learn to hear all over again from scratch. This affected her self-confidence, her friendships, her schooling, and was a very difficult time for her. Those turn-on videos you mention are overly saccharine to make you feel good while having nothing to do with the reality of the situation for almost all cases.
- noman-land 2y ago
  Wow I truly had no idea about this. Thanks for sharing your personal experience and setting the record straight. I wish you and your family nothing but positivity and good luck in life. Every day I discover a new way that humanity has disappointed me.
- kiwijamo 2y ago
  As someone who has had cochlear implant surgery myself, that is 100% true. Luckily as a member of the Deaf community I knew full well what to expect so I didn't expect to hear straight away and just looked forward to taking my time learning how to hear. Even now I still can't hear 100% (and will never be able to) but that is fine as I still use our national sign language which will always be the language I can communicate best in. It took a bit of adjustment for the hearing members of my family. Even though I kept explaining I won't be able to hear perfectly from day 1, it was still a shock for some who realised the switch on was only the start of an incredibly long journey which I am still on. Ironically, only those who had deep involvement in the Deaf/sign language community understood exactly the reality of cochlear implants -- showing that even with medical advancements, the Deaf community is still an important part of any Deaf person's life and sign language will remain a useful toolkit for all Deaf people.

toast0 2y ago

I had a chronic stuffed nose into like the 2nd grade. So when I started taking steroids for my nose, I was able to really smell for the first time, and started noticing cooking smells. Overall, kind of meh, missing out on smell is mostly not a big deal. Smell is useful to detect odorants added to dangerous gasses and to know when the cooking is done if your smoke detector is too far from the kitchen, and it can help detect spoiled food (but visual inspection usually works too), but like I don't feel like my life was worse before I could smell, and there definitely wasn't a big step change improvement.

rantymcrant 2y ago
I think someone going from normal smell ability to no smell ability might feel differently. One of the top joys in my life is eating and a large portion of that experience is smell. Take it away and I'd expect to lose a lot of what I enjoy. Not just as I eat it but even before, the smells of prep. Smelling garlic being fried or the stink of shrimp paste knowing delicious things are arriving soon. The smell of baking bread that makes my mouth water. Etc.... Another example which might seem the opposite for most. I don't personally understand the appeal of stinky tofu (yet). (all over China but most of my experience with it were Taiwan). To me it tastes like a savory tofu dish where someone set a bowl of steaming hot feces on plate next to you while I you eat. In other words, to me, nothing is added by the smell. Take it away and it would be a standard savory tofu dish. But, all of my Taiwanese friends crave this stuff and I think the smell is part of it.

1970-01-01 2y ago

NYT has an excellent summary on it. Life becomes very hard when they try to use their new sense in any meaningful way: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/books/review/comnig-to-our-senses-susan-barry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/books/review/comnig-to-ou...

iLoveOncall 2y ago
This is not at all a summary, it's a book review and it is based on 4 hand-picked examples. I wouldn't read anything into it.
- 1970-01-01 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem#Current_research_on_human_vision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem#Current_r...
  - iLoveOncall 2y ago
    Not sure what's that supposed to show? n = 5 and the results just 5 days after the first survey were extremely positive.

burnished 2y ago

I started smoking as a teenager and almost entirely lost my sense of smell. I later spent years working in cafes and bars and did a lot of food and beverage tastings where I used my limited sense of smell to the best of my ability and got pretty good at it. Eventually I met my favorite person, who didn't smoke, so I quit and over the course of the following weeks it felt like I was regaining my sense of smell with owed interest. I found out my city smells like shit and piss, flowers can have powerful aromas you smell from some distance, and some smells had become physically distressing to me. At one point I went to my favorite person's house, commented that it smelled like old grapes when they opened the door, and found out they had burnt a scented candle called champagne dream hours ago. At the height of it I thought I would eventually learn to smell the future. I find I filter more now but I still find a lot of stronger smells to be deeply unpleasant and I don't recall being sensitive like this as a child. I learned to identify some smells and relate the experience to others but my notes tended to be very basic, especially compared to a friend who was working on his level two sommelier test (who was ruthlessly empirical in his epicureanism so I believe wasn't bullshiting the wine snobbery).

tomaskafka 2y ago
Wow! There is a great gag in latest Star Trek where Spock reveals that Vulcans need to medically suppress their smell near humans because we just stink to their sensitive noses.
- TecoAndJix 2y ago
  Here is another reference from Enterprise with T'pol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYsVBaYNSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYsVBaYNSU
  - Izkata 2y ago
    It's a recurring thing in Enterprise, Archer's pet dog Porthos also bothers T'Pol at one point. I'm not sure but I think Enterprise was the one that introduced this aspect of Vulcans.
- 2y ago

squigz 2y ago

I have extreme vision loss, and the idea of gaining full vision has always scared me a little. It seems like such a huge change in my perception of the world would be... jarring. Of course, I still would. It just makes me a bit nervous.

dclowd9901 2y ago
This must be a similar feeling to the feeling of being a parent and the thought of hearing your kid talk for the first time. For some reason, with my kids, it was partly excitement and partly dread. I can’t explain why. It’s something like… it’s such an overwhelming thing to imagine that it’s frightening.