Thus it is, I'm impressed with an article in the latest issue of Discover. What happens when a middle-aged man who has been blind since the age of three, suddenly gains the gift of sight? To most sighted people, this would seem an amazing miracle. But how is it like for the previously blind person? Mike May, who had lost his vision when a miner's lantern exploded in his face, had stem-cell surgery and a corneal transplant forty years later. It restored vision to his right eye.

What is the world like now for someone like that? May had adjusted well to his blindness and proved it. For instance, he holds the world speed record for downhill skiing by a blind person. I'm a sighted person, and I don't have the guts to ski. ''He played flag football in elementary school, soccer in college, and nearly any activity that didn't involve projectiles as an adult.'' He also had a master's degree, had a job with the CIA and was (is?) the CEO of a corporation that makes Global Positioning Systems for the blind. Oh, yeah, and he helped develop the first laser turntablle, got married, has two kids and owns his own house. He's clearly ADJUSTED.

So how did he adjust to sight? It's something that has an odd effect on someone who gains it late in life. The brain hasn't been trained to interpret all that new data. Indeed, of the small number of adults who have regained vision late in life, many of them wish they'd not had this 'miracle'. For ''even the simplest of actions - walking down stairs, crossing the street - became terrifying difficult.'' They darken their houses and shut their eyes.

But not so with an adventurer like Mike May. He's gradually learning to interpret the new data, with the same ingenuity he's used all his life. But what is his personal impressions of this new world?

''People have this idea that it's so overwhelmingly practical to have sight'', May says. ''I say it's great from an entertainment point of view. I'm constantly looking for things that are unique to vision. Running and catching a ball is one of them - I've been chasing balls my whole life. Seeing the difference between the blue of my two sons' eyes is another. Or if you drop something, you can find it.''

The gift of sight may seem most miraculous, in the end, to those who have never been blind. But May still finds things in the world to entrance him. Sittling in the passenger seat of Fine's [an experimental psychologist] car one day, with his dog, Josh, panting at his feet, he ignores the blue Pacific to the left, the towering, top-heavy eucalyptus trees lining the road like something out of Dr. Seuss. Instead, he gazes at the beam of sunlight filtering through the window onto his lap.

''I can't believe the dust is just floating in the air like this,'' he says.

Oceans and trees, Seussean or otherwise, he has known all his life through touch. But this glitter of dust, suspended in the bright La Jolla sun, is an entirely new awareness. He waves his hand through the sparkling beam.

''It's like having little stars all around you.''