Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett was a college drop-out working at his dad’s furniture store when a mugging at a Tacoma, Washington karaoke bar changed his life forever.
Back then, the 31-year-old sported a mullet, drove a red Camaro and was the ‘life of the party’.
But after suffering a profound brain injury, Padgett started to see the world in a whole new light – literally – and became obsessed with math and physics.
He has since been diagnosed as one of only 40 with acquired savant syndrome, in which once-normal people become skilled in math, art or music after a brain injury.
Then and now: Jason Padgett was the ‘life of the party’ before an attack at a karaoke bar in September 2002 turned him into a math genius (pictured in 1988 on the left, and more recently on the right)
Life in technicolor: After being knocked unconscious at a local bar, Padgett woke up the next morning to find he noticed life in more detail than before. Now he draws what he sees and sells his pictures as art
Padgett writes about the life-altering experience in his new memoir out Tuesday, ‘Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel’.
It all started the night of September 13, 2002 when Padgett went out to a karaoke bar near his home and was mugged.
A beautiful mind: Padgett writes about the life-altering experience of becoming a savant in his memoir ‘Struck by Genius’, which hits book stores Tuesday
Two men attacked him from behind and punched him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.
At the hospital, he was treated for a bruised kidney but released the same night.
The next morning, Padgett woke up and found that his vision had changed to include details he never noticed before.
He started the tap in his bathroom and noticed ‘lines emanating out perpendicularly from the flow.’
‘At first, I was startled and worried for myself, but it was so beautiful that I just stood in my slippers and stared,’ Padgett told the New York Post.
Padgett stopped going to work and spent all of his time studying math and physics, focusing on fractals, which are repeated geometric patterns.
Even though he showed no talent for art before, he started drawing fractals in extreme detail – sometimes taking weeks to finish the work.
But there was also a downside to his new talents. While he was once outgoing, Padgett turned introverted and started to spend all of his time at home, covering up his windows with blankets and refusing visitors.
He became obsessed with germs and would wash his hands until they were red, and wouldn’t even hug his own daughter until she washed her hands as well.
Padgett thought he was going crazy, but hope came after watching a BBC documentary on Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant.
That’s it! That’s what’s going on with me. Oh, my God! Someone else can see what I see!’ Padgett remembers thinking.
After watching the film he decided to reach out to Dr Darold Treffert, the leading expert on savantism, who diagnosed him with ‘acquired savant syndrome’.
Back to school: Padgett re-enrolled in college after the brain injury. Pictured above with his wife
There are currently just 40 people in the world who have been diagnosed with the syndrome, becoming seemingly smarter after a brain injury.
Padgett began to understand his situation more when he traveled to Finland to be studied by Dr Berit Brogaard.
Dr Brogaard used fMRI machines to survey Padgett’s brain and found that the left side was more activated, especially in the left parietal love where ‘math lives’.
It seems that after the injury, neurotransmitters flooded the left side of Padgett’s brain and ultimately changed the structure making him hyper-specialized.
After his diagnosis, Padgett decided to apply his new-found mental capacity by enrolling in community college.
Now 43, Padgett believes he is an example that everyone has untapped genius potential..
‘I believe I am living proof that these powers lie dormant in all of us,’ Padgett writes in his memoir.
‘If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.’
