Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel by Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg Page A

people to come out and be open about their odd abilities, even using them creatively. I discovered that many synesthetes were no longer afraid to explain and describe their experiences and were now employing various artistic media to express the sensations. As I sat at my computer desk in a corner of my living room, Google Images returned caches of their work. I stared at the paintings, sculptures, and collages, feeling waves of recognition at each form and color. I listened to music composed by synesthetes and read their poetry and prose. I took comfort in the fact that there were others out there expressing what they sensed synesthetically, though I’d yet to pick up a pencil and try it myself.
    I learned that there are two types of synesthesia. The more common type, in which people see colors when they look at numbers or letters, is called perceptual, or lower, synesthesia. The type I suspected that I might have is less common and is known as conceptual, or higher, synesthesia. When I read or write a number, instead of seeing that number alone, in my mind’s eye, I see a shape superimposed over it. Experts say that this type of conceptual synesthesia may involve areas within the parietal lobe, which is located near the top of the brain and is associated with a number of abilities related to language and math as well as with spatial cognition; that is, knowing where one is in space. People with injuries to the parietal lobe often have difficulty with math. My experience was quite the opposite—I felt these areas in my parietal lobe must be key to what was happening to me in a major way, as I was both synesthetic and adept at math, a subject about which I had previously known nothing. I learned that this area of the brain is also believed to be central to retrieving memories, which I found fascinating. I have always had a very good memory, and though my isolation skewed my sense of time, making it hard for me to keep track of dates and sequences of events, my recall for new facts and concepts had become better and more sharply focused since my injury.
    I was pleased to learn that synesthesia is not always the result of an injury. Most people who have it are born with it, and many of them go on to become highly accomplished. The Nobel Prize–winning physicist and professor Richard Feynman was a synesthete; he saw colored letters. In his book
What Do You Care What Other People Think?,
he wrote: “When I see equations, I see the letters in colors—I don’t know why. As I’m talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde’s book, with light-tan
j
’s, slightly violet-bluish
n
’s, and dark brown
x
’s flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students.”
    As I pored over all the descriptions of synesthesia I could find, I discovered that most of the definitions I came across referred to it as a condition, as if it were some sort of a medical ailment, mental-health problem, or disability. In fact, most synnies, as they call themselves, reject the word
condition,
or any other word with a negative connotation, to describe synesthesia. It certainly didn’t feel like a disability to me. It was not only very beautiful but also helpful for my memory. I found I could remember numbers more easily due to the additional visuals.
    I might not have had a blue Monday like Daniel Tammet or a dark brown
X
like Richard Feynman, but my brain was still doing backflips to come up with these shapes I saw when I thought of or looked at numbers.
    The most interesting form of the phenomenon I read about was mirror-touch synesthesia. A person with mirror-touch synesthesia actually feels a physical sensation when he or she sees someone else being touched. The mechanism is related to the actions of mirror neurons, which we all have—they’re the ones that make you flinch when you see someone get hit. Mirror-touch synesthesia might just be an exaggeration of that. Still, I was grateful I