The Superhuman mind: Free the genius in your brain

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

Two researchers delve inside the lives and brains of geniuses, savants, and virtuosos, and along the way reveal how readers can tap extraordinary mental abilities that they unknowingly already possess. As psychologists and researchers studying extraordinary mental abilities, BeritBrogaard, Ph.D., and Kristian Marlow, M.A., constantly meet people with astonishing talents—card counters and memory champions, blind people who can navigate the world using echolocation, musical virtuosos and math geniuses whose abilities suddenly appeared after a lightning strike or a blow to the head, and synesthetes, people whose sensory systems allow them to see letters and numbers as colors, experience music as a physical sensation, and much else. In fact, Brogaard herself has an unusual form of synesthesia that once saved her life. The Superhuman Mind takes us inside the lives and brains of geniuses, savants, virtuosos, and a variety of ordinary people who have acquired truly extraordinary talents. Although these may seem like eclectic cases, the reality is that these gifted individuals have managed to gain conscious access to areas of the brain that normally operate far below our level of awareness. Superhuman mental ability is not a mysterious, impenetrable attribute reserved for a few special people who were born lucky. In fact, it’s probably something closer to an innate aptitude that lies dormant in the great majority of us. Delving into the neurological underpinnings of these abilities, the authors even reveal how we can acquire some of them ourselves, from perfect pitch and lightning-fast mathematical calculations to super-charged creativity, and look ahead to what possibilities for cognitive improvement may exist in the future.