A 40 year old man in Denver dove into the shallow end of a pool 6 years ago and he suffered a severe concussion, hearing and memory loss. A few days after the accident, Derek Amato sat down at a piano and played an original composition that lasted for hours. “As I shut my eyes, I found these black and white structures moving from left to right, which in fact would represent in my mind, a fluid and continuous stream of musical notation.”
He became only the 30th known person to have a syndrome known as an “acquired savant.” Acquired savant syndrome are instances in which dormant savant skills emerge, sometimes at an extraordinary level, after a brain injury or disease in previously non-disabled people where few such skills were evident before the injury or disease. The other type of savant is the “congenial savant.” They are born with a disorder of the brain such as autism.
The Idea of being a savant by hitting your head is severe and not at all worth it because you would no longer be a normal functioning adult. But if you had to choose what to become a savant in I’m pretty sure most of us would choose: