Our Genius Brains!

Have you ever heard of Daniel Tammett, dubbed “Brainman?” He is a 26 year old British citizen who happens also to be a Savant. In other words, he has abilities which far exceed that which would be considered “normal.” In Tammett’s case, his particular gifts include mathematical genius, language abilities and incredible memory recall. (You can link to a YouTube video of Brainman here.)

When Daniel was four years old, he began having epileptic seizures, the first of which was particularly severe and almost killed him. The seizures eventually subsided, but Daniel began to have a fascination, a consummation really, with numbers. He would count all kinds of things, and his relationship with numbers, it was readily apparent, was different than that of you or me. Daniel doesn’t just see a number, he feels it. And what he sees in a number is something way beyond the vertical or horizontal lines and curves that we see – he sees what seems to be almost “personality” in each number. He looks at a “9” and sees it as the biggest (in size) of all the numbers, and “6” as the smallest. He sees a “1” as a very bold number, almost like a knife. And when he sees someone or something, he automatically sees a number that represents that person or object. For instance, when being interviewed by David Letterman, he told David he seemed like he was a “113.”

Daniel is also famous for his recall of numbers, such as being able to recite the numbers of Pi to over 22,500 decimal places all from memory, taking over 5 hours to accomplish. And of course, this feat was video recorded and verified in the presence of several witnesses who followed along with computer-generated printouts of the calculation. He speaks 10 languages, and learned Icelandic, reportedly a hugely difficult language to learn, in one week! He even went on an Icelandic news program after the week and was interviewed in Icelandic to the amazement of the interviewers and viewing audience.

Tammett has been studied by medical and scientific experts all over the world, many of whom were skeptics, who thought there must be a trick Tammett uses to achieve his feats. But alas, there is no trick, save for the fact that he developed incredible mental abilities, believed by many to have resulted from his epileptic seizures as a child. Some experts hypothesize Tammett developed a link between different regions of his brain where none usually exist, and this link is what facilitates his abilities. There are, of course, other savants in the world, but reportedly less than one hundred who have abilities of the magnitude of Tammett.

Feeling a little inferior yet? Well don’t! You also have an amazing brain! It is true, and I can prove it to you. While you are sitting there reading this article, your brain is performing incredible feats. Without you telling it to, your brain is running your physiology. Your heart is beating automatically, your lungs are taking in air and oxygenating your blood, you digestive system is processing the last food you ate, your pancreas is making insulin, your body is maintaining a temperature of 98.6 degrees more or less, your hair is growing automatically, so are your eyebrows, fingernails, and body hair, your senses are perceiving inputs, etc., etc. And all this and much more is happening without you directing it consciously. Your brain, specifically your subconscious mind, is doing all this automatically. And just as amazingly, it never sleeps! That’s right, your subconscious mind does not turn off (but your conscious mind does!). If it did, you would die because your bodily functions would cease. This is the power of the “Base Subconscious.”

But there is another part of your subconscious mind, sometimes called the “Intermediate Subconscious,” that does something just as amazing. It processes, organizes and stores all of your memories. If I asked you to think of the image of the school building you attended in first grade, most of you could do it. You would be able to see the image in your mind. Now imagine this – in order for you to pull of that trick, in a nano-second you had to bypass billions of other memories, all the memories you have had since you last saw that school building. We make thousands of memories every day. For instance, if you went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, you would have a slew of memories just from doing that. You would have a memory of walking to the kitchen, of locating and retrieving the loaf of bread, taking out slices from the bread bag, locating and retrieving the lunchmeat, spreading something onto the bread, taking slices of meat from the package, etc. You get the point. Each one of those acts is an individual memory, and imagine if each one of those individual memories was contained on a different sheet of paper. How many memories, or individual sheets of paper, would you have made since that time you last saw your school in first grade? Billions and billions! If I asked you to go find the piece of paper that contains the image of your school, it would take forever. You would have warehouses full of such memories, and unless you had an amazing organizational system, you may never find that sheet of paper with that memory.

Yet, when I asked you to recall the image of the school, your powerful subconscious mind was able to do it immediately! See, you DO have an amazing brain! As a hypnotherapist at Skipnotherapy in Salem, Oregon, I am well aware of the power of my client’s minds. I also know that in its role as a protector, our subconscious mind often protects us by manifesting behaviors and feelings that seem “abnormal” to us or others. You may have developed low self-esteem, or anorexia, or obesity, or some addictions, or stuttering, or social anxiety, or any number of challenging scenarios that you cannot seem to figure out or correct.

There is often very effective help – hypnotherapy. A skilled and talented hypnotherapist can often help you make life-improving changes to behaviors or thought patterns that negatively impact your life by helping you to reframe the faulty “programming” that is causing that unwanted behavior or thinking in the first place. Just read the testimonials on the Skipnotherapy website or on any hypnotherapy site and see for yourself how people have changed.

So instead of thinking you do not have an amazing brain like Daniel Tammett, give your mind some credit. It does amazing things every day! If you or someone you care about is looking to make life-improving changes to your thoughts or behaviors, or to learn more about hypnotherapy, please contact me by visiting my website at www.skipnotherapy.com.