Struck By Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel

By Maureen Seaberg and Jason Padgett

No one sees the world quite the way Jason Padgett does: Water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns. Each number has a distinct geometric shape. Fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches and the swirl of cream in his coffee. The objects around him reveal their hidden mathematical patterns.

The amazing thing is that Jason wasn’t born this way. Twelve years ago, he was an ordinary guy, a jock who loved to party and who hadn't made it past pre-algebra in high school. One night, a vicious blow to the head in an altercation profoundly and permanently changed the way his brain worked. Jason would eventually learn that his injury had made him an acquired savant and a synesthete--someone whose blended sense perception causes such strange effects as the ability to taste shapes, to hear colours and to see numbers as geometric objects. Suddenly Jason saw the world in a completely different way. As the first documented case of acquired savant syndrome with his particular type of mathematical synesthesia, he is a medical marvel.

Struck by Genius recounts how Padgett overcame enormous setbacks and embraced his transformed mind. Along the way he found love, discovered joy in numbers and spent plenty of time having his head examined. This fascinating and inspiring story about the abilities that lie hidden within all of us reveals how much we still have to learn about the wondrous potential of the human brain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781443418171

Maureen Seaberg

MAUREEN SEABERG is an author with several forms of synesthesia and is an expert synesthesia blogger for Psychology Today. She has written for The New York Times; The Daily Beast; The Huffington Post; O, The Oprah Magazine; and ESPN: The Magazine and has appeared on MSNBC, PBS and The Lisa Oz Show on Oprah Radio. She lives in New York. JASON PADGETT is an aspiring number theorist and mathematician with acquired savant syndrome and synesthesia. He is currently the manager of three Planet Futon stores in Tacoma, Washington. His drawings of the grids and fractals he sees synesthetically won Best International Newcomer in the Art Basel Miami Beach competition. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

Reviews for Struck By Genius

[msbaba · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From extroverted college dropout party man to introverted math savantJason Padgett is one of an estimated 1.7 million Americans who annually suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Jason’s head trauma happened twelve years ago outside a karaoke bar where he was brutally and repeatedly punched and kicked in the head. After that, his life changed dramatically. Before the TBI, Jason’s only goal was to live life 24/7 as an adrenaline-seeking, hard-partying extrovert. He describes himself at that time as a math and artistic dunce. He was an I-don’t-care college dropout. He was the type of person who constantly needed something stimulating happening around him because he was incapable of just being quiet and entertaining himself from within his own mind. After the TBI, Jason’s whole personality and worldview was completely upended. Suddenly, he found an unlimited rich new world of numbers, geometry, and shapes; they endlessly fascinated him. He was completely entertained from within his own mind. He became a hermit-like introvert. He had little interest outside totally focusing on discovering and visualizing all the geometric fractal shapes he saw around him in everyday life. He started to draw these shapes and discovered he had a marvelous new ability to create artwork out of the shapes he saw all around him. He developed a keen new interest in math and, after going back to community college to learn some fundamental mathematical concepts, he started to delve into mathematical theory. He became a “mathematical marvel.”On the downside—and I learned from this book that there are always major downsides to TBIs—Jason developed an intense case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He also suffered the onslaught of frequent panic attacks. Perhaps most interesting of all, Jason became an extreme empath, i.e., at times he could feel the psychological and physical pain of other people so acutely that it would become seriously harmful to his own body. I found Jason’s life story and transformation extraordinarily fascinating, but also mightily puzzling and frustrating. The book held my attention throughout, yet I was also a bit disappointed. I wanted “more” and that intangible “more” wasn’t there. I was never fully convinced that Jason had become the “math marvel” that the book promised. Yes, he’d uncovered an amazing latent ability to understand math at a fairly advanced level, but this could hardly be called a math marvel much less a math genius. Neither did I find Jason’s art to be all that compelling or creative. Yes, it is beautiful--you can look at his work on the Fine Art America Website--but it seems to be the natural by-product of his OCD focus on visualizing fractals rather than anything truly outstanding in its own right. I get the theory behind the pi drawing, but it doesn’t make me ecstatic. I’m sure it provides him with a great deal of inner peace and tranquility to spend thousands of hours producing these highly repetitive designs—designs that a computer could easily be programmed to do on its own—but I couldn’t help but feel sad for all those “lost hours” that might have been more productively used…for example increasing his knowledge of math, or focusing on learning the medical details of OCD and PTSD. In the book, Jason repeatedly highlighted his prodigious new skill at narrowly focusing on a topic of interest and learning all he could about it from the Internet, yet so far, he has never been drawn to begin a highly-focused, in-depth study of OCD or PTSD…and this despite the fact that both disorders intervene enormously in his ability to live a normal life. For example, should Jason have taken the time to learn all he could, in depth, about the human microbiome, he might be able to break himself of the harmful practice of excessively lathering his entire body in antimicrobial lotions. Perhaps another habit might emerge to replace the one lost, a habit that might be less harmful and life-disabling. An extrovert is predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification from what is outside the self, while an introvert is predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification from his or her own interior mental life. (I highly recommend reading Susan Cain’s magnificent book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking” for more on this topic). This aspect of the book—at least for me—was the number one profound change that took place in Jason. The TBI propelled him from an extreme extrovert to an extreme introvert. I’d have liked to have seen more neurological interest and discussion in this book on that aspect of his transformation. But I have to remind myself that this book is the intimate private story of Jason’s life, not the life I would have wanted Jason to live. So I have no reason to be disappointed or frustrated. I have nothing but sincere admiration for Maureen Seaberg’s talent at writing this book. She did a remarkable job of getting inside her subject and channeling him in an authentic first-person narrative. I recommend this book highly. It is unique and fascinating. However, if you read it, know that it may leave you with more questions than it answers. But isn’t that always the case with life? It is infinitely mystifying. I wish Jason all the best in his life ahead. I marvel at all he has achieved since his TBI. If he and Maureen were to update this book in another ten years, I suspect that we’d all see an even greater transformation in the years to come.