Savant syndrome and Intuitive Vision

Intuitive Vision and savant syndrome: a surprising link

An excerpt from the book La Visió Intuïtiva (Intuitive Vision)

Savant syndrome and extraordinary abilities

According to the psychiatrist Darold A. Treffert, in his paper Savant Syndrome: Realities, Myths and Misconceptions (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2013), savant syndrome is a rare condition that affects the development of the brain hemispheres and the connections between them.

Thanks to advances in neuroimaging, it has been observed that people with this syndrome may have a highly developed right hemisphere, which gives them access to extraordinary abilities, such as:

✔ Photographic memory.
✔ Great ease in learning languages.
✔ Advanced mental arithmetic.
✔ Synesthesia and heightened sensory perception.

The syndrome can be congenital or acquired after damage to the left hemisphere.

In general, the abilities of savants fall into four main categories:

1️⃣ Art: great musical performers (especially pianists), painters and sculptors.
2️⃣ Calendar calculation: the ability to memorize entire calendars and recall specific events on any given day.
3️⃣ Mathematical calculation: complex operations of extreme precision, such as divisions to 100 decimal places or calculating prime numbers.
4️⃣ Mechanical and spatial skills: measuring distances without instruments, building detailed scale models, memorizing maps.

So they stand out as great musical performers (especially on the piano), painters and sculptors. They often have an innate aptitude for understanding and interpreting music. Some people with the syndrome can memorize entire calendars and remember specific facts linked to each of those days. They often carry out complex mathematical calculations instantly and with enormous precision: working out prime numbers, the decimals of pi or divisions to 100 decimal places, all in their heads. Or they can measure distances almost exactly without any instrument, memorize maps and routes, and so on.

This condition of the hemispheres can come with emotional, behavioral and relational difficulties. A diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is very common in these cases.

Watch the video: savant syndrome

An example from fiction: The Good Doctor

Many savants can overlay mental images on their real surroundings, projecting them like holograms.

A fictional example of this ability is the main character of the series The Good Doctor, a doctor with savant syndrome who visualizes his patients’ organs as holograms, which helps him make more accurate diagnoses.

Even though it is fiction, the ability to project mental images is based on real facts and helps us understand how the right hemisphere can produce inner images so vivid that they seem real.

The link between savant syndrome and Intuitive Vision

When we practice Intuitive Vision, we develop a “mental screen” on which we project images. These can come from:

🔹 memories and thoughts;
🔹 information picked up intuitively (when we practice blindfolded).

This mental screen is the surface on which our intuition shows us images and knowledge.

It seems that this screen is the result of work that stimulates right-hemisphere functions that conventional education rarely calls on.
This little screen is exactly the same one that people with savant syndrome use to project their thoughts, images, knowledge and memories, as you can see in the following video:

Watch the video: the mental screen

The role of the right hemisphere in Intuitive Vision

Intuitive Vision training stimulates functions of the right hemisphere, the very ones that, very often, have not been developed by conventional education. See also our page on Jill Bolte Taylor and the brain hemispheres.

In fact, this mental screen is the same one that people with savant syndrome use to project thoughts, images and memories.

Authors such as Makoto Shichida state that, thanks to this mental screen, we can:

✅ Visualize mental abacuses to calculate quickly.
✅ Remember the correct spelling of any word after seeing it only once.
✅ Strengthen visual and auditory memory.

In short, Intuitive Vision is a key tool for personal and cognitive development.

Watch the video

The courses we offer

At the Intuitive Vision Institute, we have developed a set of techniques, tools and games to activate and strengthen Intuitive Vision in adults and children alike:

🔹 Intuitive Vision sessions for adults and children.
🔹 Extraocular vision exercises to strengthen intuition.
🔹 Techniques to stimulate the connection between the brain hemispheres.
🔹 Coach training in Intuitive Vision and Expanded Intuition.

If you would like to explore and develop this amazing ability, take a look at our courses or get in touch.