Savants - masters of "mental chaos"

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

People with this deviation show exceptional phenomenal ability in one area, in contrast to the general limitations of the personality.

Savant syndrome is not a recognized medical disorder; it is very little studied, and scientists are still trying to figure out what is happening in the minds of these amazing people.

1. Jedediah Buxton

Born in the 18th century in Derbyshire (England), this virtuoso counter never received a proper education, but he could easily measure the area of Elmton's land (several thousand acres), just walking on them. He not only counted acres and births, but even calculated square inches, converting his calculations into one number.

It is reported that Buxton came up with his own names for large numbers, which were not used anywhere in his time. He used the word "tribe" for a million cubed, and "trump" for a thousand tribes.

2. Orlando Serell

Orlando Serell is a prime example of "acquired savantism." He began showing extraordinary abilities after being hit in the head with a ball at the age of 10 while playing baseball. Soon after this incident, Orlando discovered that he could perform complex calendar calculations, as well as remember the weather of any day of the week.

3. Tristan Mendoza

Tristan Mendoza, nicknamed Tum-Tum, was born in Quezon City, Philippines. As soon as the boy reached the age when he was able to hold sticks in his hands, he became famous all over the world thanks to his exceptional musical talent. At the age of two, Tristan became a music prodigy, masterly playing the marimba (a relative of the xylophone).

4. Matt Savage

Despite the fact that this gifted autistic musician never received any formal education, since the age of 6 he has amazed audiences all over the world with his incomparable piano playing and perfect pitch. As an accomplished performer, he has toured the world and performed jazz with the Matt Savage Trio, and also performed in front of heads of state. To date, Matt Savage has a huge number of awards in all kinds of music competitions. He is the only child to have signed a contract with Bösendorfer.

5. James Henry Pallen

Also known as the "genius of the Earlswood Orphanage," James has been unable to pronounce or write more than one syllable in his entire life. However, he became a first-class wood craftsman and even furnished the hospital for the insane (where he lived) with his own furniture. Success came to Pallen when the hospital sent Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, a painting "The Defense of Sevastopol" by an autistic savant. It remained a mystery to everyone where the gifted madman took plots and knowledge: he was not able to read, speak or hear.

His masterpiece is the model of the ship "TheGreatEastern", made with scrupulous accuracy, up to 5, 516 rivets on the sides of the ship and in the details of the recreated interior interiors of the cabins.

6. Leslie Lemke

The autistic savant Leslie Lemke was born with a severe disability that resulted in the complete removal of both eyes. The mother abandoned the boy, and at 6 months he was adopted by a nurse. It took Leslie almost 15 years to learn to walk, and about 15 seconds to reproduce from memory Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, once heard on TV. After this incident, Leslie began performing music of various styles, performing all over the world, from Japan to Scandinavia.

7. Gilles Trehin

At the age of 5, Gilles learned to paint, and at the age of 12 he founded his own city. Of course, this city did not exist in reality, but on paper and was called Urville. The boy thoroughly and in all details described its history, geography, culture and economy, while creating about 300 accurate drawings of city views and landscapes. He also wrote a book dedicated to the imaginary Urville.

8. Alonzo Clemons

As a child, Alonzo suffered a serious brain injury. With an IQ of between 45 and 50 and unable to read and write, he demonstrated an amazing talent for sculpture from an early age. Alonzo can quickly render a 3D model of any creature or object with just a glimpse of it.

9. Stephen Wiltshire

Stephen Wiltshire became famous for his ability to paint complex architectural landscapes from memory, for which he received the nickname "camera man". In 2005, Stephen demonstrated to the whole world the possibilities of his phenomenal memory by taking a helicopter tour over Tokyo and over the next 7 days drawing his detailed panorama on a 16-meter sheet of paper. Incredible, but true: having done the same and painted a panorama of Rome, the artist even depicted the exact number of columns in the Pantheon.

10. Jason Padgett

Jason Padgett is one of the few people in the world who can create mathematically accurate freehand fractals. He was diagnosed with sudden onset of savant syndrome due to a blow to the back of the head during a bully attack. Jason was also diagnosed with synesthesia - he saw mathematical formulas in the form of geometric shapes (fractals) in ordinary everyday situations. He allegedly came up with an accurate visual explanation of the formula E = mc2. (see photo)

11. Ellen Boudreau

One of the few female savants who, upon hearing a melody for the first time, could immediately play it on the piano or guitar. She also knows all previously created songs by heart.

Ellen also has a unique talent that has not yet been recorded in any savant or in any person in the world: she uses echolocation no worse than whales or bats. Parents were the first to notice her abilities, shocked by the fact that their 4-year-old blind daughter is perfectly oriented in space: she does not touch the jambs and bypasses any obstacles. True, at the same time she mumbles some strange song under her breath. It turned out that by the way the sound propagates, Ellen learns about the object on its way.

In addition, when the girl was 8 years old, her mother let her listen to a recording of "Time for a Lady" so that she could overcome her fear of telephones. From that day on, Ellen, who had never seen a clock in her life, could tell what time it was to the nearest second.

12. Daniel Tammet

Could you start learning one of the most difficult languages on Earth (Icelandic) on Monday morning and be fluent in it on Friday evening? This highly gifted British savant has an amazing memory and knows 10 other languages besides Icelandic, including his personally invented Mänti language (whose grammar is similar to Finnish and Estonian).

Daniel can also rightfully be called a supercomputer. He broke the European record by playing 22.514 decimal places for pi in 5 hours 9 minutes. Daniel claims to "represent numbers as visual images that have color, structure and shape." They appear in his mind as landscapes.

However, his unique abilities are not as perfect as it might seem. Within an hour after parting with the interlocutor, Daniel can remember the distance between his eyes, the number of buttons on his shirt and any other details, but he does not recognize him when he meets on the street.

13. Kim Peak

Known as the "mega-savant," Kim became the prototype for Dustin Hoffman's character in the cult film Rain Man. His brain was able to remember everything it had ever processed. As a child, Kim read a lot and could retell the full content of about 12 thousand books. He absorbed a book spread in 10-15 seconds - all the text at the same time, and not line by line. He also remembered and could sketch any map he saw and write down the score of any piece of music he had seen.

14. Are you?

Among scientists studying the phenomenon of savantism, there is still an ongoing debate about whether or not ordinary people (who have not suffered head injuries or diseases affecting the brain) can develop superhuman abilities like Kim Peak or Daniel Tammet. While it is unlikely that in the near future, doctors will prescribe pills that expand the boundaries of mental capacity, yet research conducted on savants has given the world some idea of how their brains function. And who knows? Maybe one day we will all be able to name 20 thousand digits of pi without hesitation.