Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderment of the eyes are of two kinds and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mid’s eye, quite as much as the bodily eye.

And he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak will not be too ready to laugh. He will first ask whether that the soul of man has come out of the brighter life and is unable to see because, unaccustomed to the dark or having turned from the darkness to the day, is dazzled by the excess of light.

And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other. Or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. (From Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave)