What does a new world feel like?
The new world of Cochlear hearing
What is it like to suddenly sense a vast new world opening before you? It is like turning on the electronics of a cochlear implant for the first time. Through this modern electronic miracle the deaf may hear again or even hear for the first time. Since the 1980’s about three-quarters of a million people have had a cochlear implant.
A minute microphone picks up sound, converts it to electric impulses and funnels it to nerves which are eager to transmit the equivalent of sound, but cannot, because the mechanical part of the ear no longer works.
Even for those who have once heard, the cochlear implant may not be an immediate miracle because the brain has to learn which strange signals from the nerves correspond to words in the real world and this can take 3-6 months. However for some people it is much faster. There are now many videos which show what people experience when the system is turned on for the first time. The responses vary, but some people find it is like entering a new world. They are overcome with emotion and tears, and even onlookers can feel the same.
The next advance may well be new vision for the blind. Already there are experimental devices which act like a very poor resolution camera and can feed a very blurry picture to the brain, but one day... Aah!.
When we are changed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” we shall no longer see “through a glass, darkly, but face to face.” What will be the overwhelming feeling we shall have? It will be entering a new world, which we will realise we have longed for all our lives. Yes, most of us will collapse in tears at the fulfilment of long longing. But God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.