As we entered the dining room, however, I saw why it was the Midwest’s only AAA Five Diamond resort hotel—it was brimming with custom woodwork, tapestries, and fine furniture.
Dr. Treffert ordered his standard drink, not an ice water this time but an old-fashioned, and Maureen and I got the same. We toasted our meeting, and I wasn’t sure if it was the whiskey or the company, but I felt more warm and relaxed than I had in ages. Meeting Dr. Treffert and having his imprimatur on my case meant the world to me. I felt part of a rare fraternity now.
Chapter Eighteen
No Regrets
AFTER YEARS OF speculation and confusion, I finally have a fledgling sense of a real identity. I feel optimistic, thanks to my conference debut, the new community of synesthetes around me, the findings of the first detailed scans of my brain, and especially my meeting with the legendary Dr. Treffert. It’s like I’ve just been formally introduced to my new self after years of having two beings co-inhabit my battered body: the old me and the suddenly new me. I’m ready to remember the way I was without regret and move on more fully into the unexplored territory that is me now: the world’s only known person with acquired savant syndrome and acquired synesthesia.
Based on everything I’ve learned so far, I have to agree with Dr. Treffert’s and Dr. Snyder’s theory that the visions I (and my fellow synesthetes) see and the capabilities I (and my fellow savants) have are available to everyone. I believe I am living proof that these powers lie dormant in all of us. Given my anemic educational background prior to my attack, nothing in my life up to that point could account for these abilities. Not a thing was added; rather, the knowledge was uncovered from some deep and mysterious place.
Just ask my parents. “You knew no mathematical terms at all before this; none, zero,” my dad said when I asked him what he thought of the changes in me. “The math is a complete right turn—you’re going down the highway and then just turn ninety degrees differently. It opened up an intellectual window that wasn’t there before. It’s pretty remarkable. I’m a pretty analytical guy so I wouldn’t call it a miracle. But it’s something.”
My mom was just as surprised by my new abilities and interests. “It was like a fountain had been turned on flowing out of your mouth, your ears, your skin, with information coming faster than you could keep up with,” she said. “You can’t look at anything without seeing the underlying geometry of it. Maybe I need the tint you have on your glasses on mine!”
As for the scientists, they’re still working on their theories to explain what happened in my brain. Dr. Treffert contends that genetic memory was released as my brain rewired itself and healed. As he wrote in his book Islands of Genius, “Genetic memory is simply the biological transfer of knowledge, templates, and certain skills along with the myriad of other inherited physical characteristics, instincts, traits, and behaviors.” This genetic memory isn’t a Padgett family heirloom being passed from one generation to the next in my family tree, but rather a shared genetic memory among all of humankind. It’s as if we all come preloaded with this knowledge. The idea that human DNA might come with some sort of blueprint of hidden capabilities fascinates me most of all.
Dr. Treffert taught me about the three R’s as they pertain to what happened to my brain. They stand for brain rewiring, recruitment of unused capacity, and release of dormant potential. Though these are present in people who are born with savant syndrome, he explained, their existence has been severely underestimated in the rest of us. Cases like mine prove a far greater plasticity of the brain in its ability to heal itself than was previously thought. He said that this has implications not only for brain-injury survivors like me but also for those who have autism, neurological damage from strokes, or nervous system disorders. This makes me feel hopeful that my experience may one day help other people.
I’ve learned so much on this journey. To be one person and then, suddenly, to become another has given me the ability to empathize with a wide range of people. Before my injury, I did not have much interest in, or patience for, those who pursued academic knowledge. Now I have the highest respect for such people. Similarly, I have empathy for young people who get a little lost in the party scene and lose their way academically. I may not be like them anymore, but I have thought about how that can deaden a lot of pain and keep one afloat during difficult times.
And where my communication with other people was once often superficial, if pleasant, I now have almost daily conversations with the customers at my store about the very meaning of life and how the universe works. My art is central to sharing these ideas with others. To me it is the fundamental nature of things, but will it end up shedding light on the nature of the cosmos when considered by top mathematicians and astrophysicists? I would like to start that conversation and humbly share whatever is going on in my mind with key people from many fields. To me, the beauty and symmetry of what I see and draw signals some greater truth. Dr. Jean-Pierre Luminet, the French astrophysicist, writer, and poet, considered geometric art’s importance in his 2009 paper “Science, Art and Geometrical Imagination.” He said, “Modern physicists such as John Wheeler and Roger Penrose insist on the significance of aesthetics in choosing and evaluating scientific theories. According to Penrose, ‘It is a mysterious thing, in fact, how something which looks attractive may have a better chance of being true than something which looks ugly.’”
I agree with this assessment. To me, the truth of what I’m seeking lies in the beauty of what I see. In his new book Measurement, mathematician Paul Lockhart also supports this idea. “What makes a mathematician,” he wrote, “is not technical skill or encyclopedic knowledge but insatiable curiosity and a desire for simple beauty.”
I still have so much more to learn. I need more background in mathematics and physics and supporting subjects in order to better understand the value of what I’m seeing and drawing. My new wetware didn’t come with an instruction manual, but I believe that more formal study of these subjects will allow me to wield my new talents with greater clarity and focus.
If nature really does reveal herself through exceptions, as the famous maxim says, what is nature trying to tell us through my example?
Here’s what I think, from inside this rare thing: The way I see the world is visual proof to me that we are all enmeshed in a geometric space, and we are all capable of knowing more about it. I’m not talking about just studying theoretical models. I’m talking about witnessing them through personal experience. But to do so, we need to learn how to unleash our inner geniuses. As Dr. Treffert said in Islands of Genius, “The challenge is how to tap into those dormant abilities—the little Rain Man within us all—non-intrusively without some obtrusive central nervous system event. That’s where the research is focused now.”
Until the experts figure out how to do that, perhaps people could get a glimpse at the hidden nature of the universe through the sort of meditation practiced by Tibetan lamas or maybe someday by wearing a device like Dr. Snyder’s creativity cap. It’s exciting to think about other people getting to experience the world the way I do.
As I’ve settled into the new me, I’ve noticed that my life has started to turn around. I’ve been very fortunate this past year and have begun to share my work more. My art is getting noticed. I submitted work to a prestigious international art show called Art Basel for their Miami Beach event in 2008. My drawings were seen with the best contemporary artworks from around the world, and I won a Best International Newcomer award. Several art collectors have been in touch about acquiring my original drawings. Some of my work was just on display at Oxford University in England in an exhibit titled Affecting Perception: Art & Neuroscience, which featured artists with neurological conditions.
In the spring of 2012, Nightline did a report about me. I met journalist Neal Karlinsky and shared my view of the world as we walked through my favorite hometown park and visited Tacoma’s Museum of Glass together. I never expected the world to light up the way it did after the rep
ort aired. The video and story went viral. There were thousands of Tweets, some by very prominent people. Could they really be interested in me? I wondered. Next, filmmakers and television producers were on the phone looking for me. One hilarious comedic television pitch had an actor portraying me working at Planet Futon while everyone in the world came to ask me for help, from schoolchildren with homework problems to NASA and the FBI. And then a woman sent me a photo: she’d gotten my double-slit experiment drawing tattooed on her right shoulder!
As a result of all this recent good fortune, I sign about ten autographs a week in the store. I feel a little embarrassed when people ask for my signature, but I see it as an opportunity to share more of my life and ask people about theirs. I make sure I spend time with each and every person, answering any questions he or she might have. People from all walks of life ask me things about the nature of the cosmos. Just recently a slim, blond woman of about forty came in with her husband to buy a futon for some overnight guests her family was having. We ended up spending four hours talking about relativity, parallel universes, pi, and all my favorite topics. I kept the store open two hours past closing time. It was so satisfying to me to share my ideas with receptive people.
Her mother came in the next day and said, “You’ve changed my daughter’s life. She hasn’t always been a happy person. She’s had some bouts of depression. But she is so filled with wonder now and so energized. I’ve never seen her so alive. She said you explained things to her that were hidden to her before. She’s looking at the world—and her place in it—a whole new way. Thank you.” That touched me deeply.
Having so much to be grateful for has brought me to a place of acceptance and even forgiveness. If my attackers stood before me today, I would offer them an olive branch and express the hope that they’ve changed their lives for the better since that terrible night. I’ve come to the realization that if I carry around that hurt and anger forever, it will eat me alive, so I’m letting it go. You might say I’ve come full circle—and I’ve certainly felt every bump along the jaggy edge of the straight lines that I know make up one. I wonder if my assailants still carry the guilt and shame of what they did to me. It is my understanding they were never jailed, only arrested, held briefly, and then released.
I’m thankful that the epidemic of traumatic brain injuries is now finally coming into national awareness thanks to the research of a lot of top scientists and the work of victim advocates. I hope to be part of that growing national conversation.
One of the most notable recent developments came in early 2013 when Jorge Barrio, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, and a team of his fellow UCLA scientists released a small but groundbreaking study of five retired NFL players who each had a history of one or more concussions and who had some cognitive symptoms. The brain-imaging method Barrio developed allowed a marker of traumatic brain injury, a protein called tau, to be detected in living patients—previously, the only way to determine if this protein was present was at autopsy, when it was already too late to do anything about the findings. This new diagnostic is so important and such a huge breakthrough because early detection of damage may allow for some form of treatment and possibly even healing.
This explosive report grabbed headlines in the national media and boosted awareness of TBIs as a result. I felt a real kinship to those professional athletes and was happy to hear their stories being told. In fact, I was so moved that I decided to do all I could to advocate for TBI survivors. I would like to heed Dr. Treffert’s call for me to be an ambassador for those who cannot speak about their injuries, especially the more than two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. servicemen and servicewomen who have suffered traumatic brain injuries since 2000.
I hope other TBI survivors can learn something from my journey, even if it is very rare, as Dr. Barrio said when he spoke to me and Maureen. In talking about his research and the relationship of my case to it, he said, “It’s a very dramatic example of the things that could happen, how complex our brain is . . . Honestly, considering how devastating these concussions from beatings can be, I think it’s a blessing that you can do all these things.”
An extraordinary development in brain science occurred in early April 2013. That’s when President Barack Obama made an announcement that really caught my attention. It was about something called the BRAIN Initiative, which stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. I learned that a hundred million dollars was going to be dedicated to research on the human brain. In his speech, President Obama talked about giving scientists the tools and resources they needed to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action. That made me think of the fMRI tests I had undergone, and I wondered what new brain-imaging tests might be developed that could offer even better explanations of what is happening to me.
The program’s creators hope to speed up the development of new technologies—kind of like how the space program produced huge technological side benefits. Getting better technology is only one goal of the project. Researchers will also be trying to gain a better understanding of how the brain works and how it is related to behavior and learning. With that comes a greater possibility of discovering new ways to treat or prevent disorders like Alzheimer’s, autism, and even PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
I already feel a personal connection with the BRAIN Initiative thanks to its co-chair William Newsome, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Just one day after his appointment was announced, Dr. Newsome, who also serves as a board member of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and a correspondent for the committee on human rights at the National Academy of Sciences, took the time to comment thoughtfully on my story.
“Jason’s case—and other cases like his, in which individuals develop new and specialized cognitive capabilities after brain injury—will be important sources of insight for us as we move forward with the BRAIN Initiative,” he said. According to Dr. Newsome, people like me who suffer brain injuries and then undergo changes in behavior, perception, or personality can help brain scientists understand new things about the way the brain works. He pointed to new technologies on the horizon that may help scientists get an even clearer picture of what happens in the brains of people who suffer traumatic injuries and said that I might be extremely helpful. “Extraordinary clinical cases like Jason’s, especially when examined using some of these new technologies, could give us insights into the brain that we would otherwise never have access to.”
It’s so exciting to think that my case might actually help scientists understand how the brain works and ultimately find better ways to diagnose and treat brain disorders. I would feel so honored if I could play a role—no matter how small—in improving the lives of TBI survivors, as well as the lives of sufferers of PTSD, chronic pain, depression, and OCD. And I love the idea that my experience and my brain may help boost awareness about the amazing gifts of synesthesia and savant syndrome.
What’s even more thrilling is the very real possibility that with this new focus on brain research, scientists may finally find a way to unleash the inner genius hiding within each of us.
Since I began working on this book project, my wife, Elena, my daughter, Megan, and I have moved to a safer neighborhood in Tacoma. Living in a place that is not a hub of the criminal-justice system is such a relief and eases my mind tremendously as I plan my future. Elena graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington and got a job at a major finance company. And my daughter, Megan, sixteen as of this writing, has blossomed into a beautiful young woman. She is learning Japanese and looking ahead to higher education. I take a special interest in her math studies and tutor her all I can. I’m so proud of them both and very lucky to have such a loving family. And our family is growing! Elena and I are expecting our first child together in August 2014.
I am now back in college part-time, taking classes at Highline Community College in my new neighborhood. I continue to try to synthesize what
I believe due to my visions with what the accepted teachings are in these areas.
I still feel a lot of pressure to keep the family business going, but I have so many questions that can be answered only in an academic setting. I look forward to a lifetime of learning and remaining open, not hidden behind the walls of my home, despite any lingering fears and phobias. I hope to share my story with many more people in the coming years, demonstrating through my own experience that the extraordinary can happen in the lives of everyday people.
It’s always just beneath the surface of us all.
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK MAY have two authors, but there are many team members behind its creation, without whom we’d still be talking between ourselves.
Our families and friends have been extremely supportive during this project—thank you especially to Elena and Megan Padgett and Dr. Erkan Ertürk, as well as Richard and Mary Seaberg, for listening and cheering and giving us the space to create.
To our literary agent, the immensely talented Stephen Barr: You started as our trusted compass and became our true north. Thank you for your early belief in this story (and that initial “Holy cow!”), for encouraging scenes where there were once mere sentences, and for your unfailing support throughout the publishing process. We realized early on there was more than one genius on this team.
To Dan Conaway and everyone at Writers House who also believed from the beginning and helped in so many ways: sincere thanks.
Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel Page 21
