The Right Side Brain Savant
Savant syndrome occurs when a person with below normal intelligence displays an incredible ability in a specific area — like, for instance, if George W. Bush had extraordinary musical, mathematical, or artistic talent. ;-)
One thing to note about the super abilities of savants: they are gifts usually associated with the right side of the brain.
The Divine Right Side Brain
People with savant syndrome seem to have right-side brain abilities on steroids.
Savants may be able to mentally double 8,388,628 up to 24 times within a few seconds, paint amazingly accurate cityscapes from photographic memory, or sit down at a piano and play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 after only one listen.
Until recently, savant syndrome was thought to occur due to some sort of injury to the left side brain — occurring either inside the womb, or shortly after birth — which caused the right side brain to overcompensate.
But more recently, scientists have pondered whether we all have unconscious right side brain super abilities.
Allan Snyder, award-winning physicist and director of the Center for the Mind at the University of Sydney, says everybody has the innate capacity for savantlike skills:
Even something as simple as seeing requires phenomenally complex information processing.
When a person looks at an object, for example, the brain immediately estimates an object’s distance by calculating the subtle differences between the two images on each retina (computers programmed to do this require extreme memory and speed). During the process of face recognition, the brain analyzes countless details, such as the texture of skin and the shape of the eyes, jawbone, and lips. Most people are not aware of these calculations.
In savants the top layer of mental processing — conceptual thinking, making conclusions — is somehow stripped away. Without it, savants can access a startling capacity for recalling endless detail or for performing lightning-quick calculations.
This theory has been bolstered by a growing number of cases in which normal people suddenly acquire savant-like super talents after a head injury, after the onset of frontotemporal dementia in old age, and also, sometimes during deep hypnosis.
The Right Side Brain Experience of Jill Bolte Taylor
Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor got the opportunity to experience the full power of the right side brain firsthand. One morning, when a stroke disabled her left side brain, she experienced the world according to her right side brain.
After years of rehabilitation, Taylor was able to tell the world about her experience:
TEDTalks Video: Jill Bolte Taylor describes what it’s like to lose your left side brain.
Daniel Tammet: The Rosetta Stone of Brain Research
Daniel Tammet is a savant gifted with super mathematical and natural language abilities. He’s most famous for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits, and for learning Icelandic in a week. He’s also fluent in English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Welsh and Esperanto.
There are fewer than 50 prodigious savants in the world, and unlike the rest of them, Tammet has no obvious mental disability. Because his language skills are functioning to a high degree, he can describe his own savant thought processes, which makes him a scientific Rosetta Stone for brain researchers.
Tammet explains that he “experiences” numbers, each with its own unique shape, color, and texture, and emotion. When solving math problems, he doesn’t consciously work out the answers, but sees the answers appear, emerging from mutating, multiple-sensory landscapes.
In 2005, Tammet was the subject of an engrossing UK documentary, well worth the watch:
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Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (1/5)
Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (2/5)
Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (3/5)
Update: Don’t miss the next post on Achieving Left and Right Brain Balance.
Read More: autistic, savant, savant syndrome, left side brain, right side brain, Jill Bolte Taylor, Daniel Tammet
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April 21st, 2008 at 9:26 am
Awesome post, Joe.
Not sure how “objective” Jill’s observations are (how the hell could they be?), but they are captivating!
I really identify with the “experience”. It seems VERY similar to my youth when I experimented with LSD, grass, etc….which seemed to strip away the covering on my soul/all my programming and allow me to journey throughout my body or to a collective soul. Again, not sure how objective my journeys were, but prior to my experimentation, I was naturally inclined to being a ridgid little nazi and the “therapeutic?) nature of the drugs/experience, changed all that.
I’ve already sent your post to everyone I know who would be receptive. Including 3 relatives who are stroke victims. But now I worry even more about those pains behind my eyes ;-)
April 21st, 2008 at 9:48 am
Very interesting. As a survivor of a serious brain injury, I always find articles about the brain interesting (that is unless they go so deep, that I have to read them over and over again just to “get it”). When I was 12 my best friend accidently hit me in the head with a baseball bat. I spent several weeks in the hospital, and several weeks at home and out of school. Where as the doctor said that there was no brain damage, sometimes I wonder. I do not think that I have gone to an extreme on any of the things listed on the link below, but a few things, I do find I have problems with. Some of it could just be getting old, and some of it could just be who I am….
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/RightBrainDamage.htm
Seeing that I made it this far and finished college, and functioned for several years in my career, I think that I am okay.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:08 am
Great post. The next one of this nature should feature how a large majority in this country use neither side, and are so happy to follow the herd and not have to suffer the pain of thinking.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am
Xman: Thanks for the comments and sharing the post. Folks jumping/flying off the top of tall buildings notwithstanding, LSD seems to have that all-you-need-is-love, come-together, nothing-to-get-hung-about affect on people that the Beatles transferred so well to song. The change in outlook of people who’ve tried LSD sounds very similar to the change in people who’ve had very meaningful near death experiences. Pretty interesting…
Jodi: If getting hit in the head with a bat permanently affected your brain, it affected it just right, because your personality is perfect and beautiful the way it is today. But I’m guessing that the bat did have SOME permanent affect, however small, so if I had a time machine and could go back in time to that day, I’d have to admit I wouldn’t try to stop you from getting smacked in the head, because you’re perfect just the way you are. (There’s no way to avoid getting into trouble with this comment, is there?)
Pelmo: You are so very close to the truth…there IS going to be another post of this nature soon, and it IS going to discuss what’s wrong with the way most folks use their noggins in this country. You must be freakin’ psychic or something!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Ahhh, Pelmo.
This is the second time in about 2 or 3 posts you have anticipated Joe.
What’s your secret?
You are so right on, in your frustrations at the “mob”, who think “parroting” someone else is actually their opinion.
Further, “reacting” requires no thinking at all. Just the ability to see the red of the matadors cape or whatever else is waved in front of them…like lapel pins, turbans, dark skin, smart women, dieties other than their own, face jewelry, or french fries!
Damn! The sky seems full of flying monkeys.
I’m counting on you Joe, to help make sense of it all.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:55 am
I question and think about everything I see and read, and don’t take things for granted. When I was young and screwed up, my father would always ask, “why didn’t you do it this way, it’s much easier”? After that I would always think if there was a smarter and easier way of doing things.
Like the old adage, measure twice, cut once.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Thanks Joe. I am lucky to have someone like you that loves me even though I am broken.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 am
ha ha ha…wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. Jodi, I think your brain is working just fine. Must find fallout shelter now.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
XMan- LOL! Actually… I am in a fallout shelter, or something close to it! I work in the basement of a NASA building that is located at the redstone arsenal. I have plans to move the family here.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 am
Say what? I’m not moving to the Arsenal! They’re always testing new rocket engines out there and blowing out car windows. And I’m convinced some of NASA’s middle-of-the-night “rocket engine tests” are really the U.S. Missile Command playing with new toys…
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 am
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May 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
I recommend Amazon as the place to get Jill Bolte Taylor’s book MY STROKE OF INSIGHT because they have a wonderful interview with her on Amazon that offers new content I haven’t seen anywhere else - that link is: http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0670020745/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211471755&sr=1-2
The book is an absolutely wonderful journey by a brain scientist who suffered a stroke. She recovered fully, back to teaching at Medical School no less (and she gives great tips on how and what to do to recover from a Stroke or help others recover).
Dr Taylor also learned to fully be present in the part of the brain/mind where we experience full inner peace and Nirvana. SHe teaches that too, and that’s why everyone should read this book.
This story is as inspiring as The Last Lecture or Tuesdays with Morrie - and it has a Happy Ending!
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 am
I read “My Stroke of Insight” in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it’s a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I’ve ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 am
Thank you for that. Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight is one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her TEDTalk video blew my mind wide open to new possibilities. On the one hand, there’s what she went through and how she emerged from it. On the other hand, there’s what she can teach all of us.
I saw the 4 part Oprah interview on Oprah dot com Soul Series and I did learn a lot from that, but I’d like to find our more of how to do what Dr. Taylor did, without having a stroke of course!
Thin how many of us are living too much in the head, and not the heart. And of course, you can’t get more left brain than a Harvard Brain Scientist. Isn’t it ironic that she should be the one to have the stroke and transform from the quintessential left brainer into this “”seen the light”" disciple of finding inner peace?
I hope this movement keeps going. Maybe there will be My Stroke of Insight classes where we can practice what Jill Bolte Taylor is preaching.