Can We Learn by Visualizing Like Daniel Tammet?

I remember a story about Daniel Tammet I read several months ago. Daniel Tammet is a savant who is able to effortlessly recount pi to 22,514 digits (besides other abilities such as speaking more than ten languages). Here is his explanation of how he did it:

“I see numbers in my head as colors and shapes and textures. So when I see a long sequence, the sequence forms landscapes in my mind,” Tammet explains. “Every number up to 10,000, I can visualize in this way, has it’s own color, has it’s own shape, has it’s own texture.”

For example, when Daniel says he sees Pi, he does those instant computations, he is not calculating, but says the answer simply appears to him as a landscape of colorful shapes.

“The shapes aren’t static. They’re full of color. They’re full of texture. In a sense, they’re full of life,” he says.

A Wikipedia article about Daniel Tammet explains that this is a form of synesthesia.

Well, I don’t really know about synesthesia. I’m just thinking, isn’t it great if we can visualize information this way? We read a book, and the information comes to our mind as a visualized landscape instead of mere words. We can then recall the ideas in the book precisely by visualizing the landscape.

I don’t know if there is a way to do this, but who knows?

2 Comments

  1. There are definitely ways we can enhance our brain through visualization! The brain can’t differentiate between its beliefs and imagination. If you work with your subconscious through music that helps activate the right brainwaves, and visualize in the right way way you can achieve a lot. A free report that goes into the most effective way to visualise for results can be found at
    http://www.selfdevelopmentsecrets.com/freeattractionreport.html – well worth a read.

  2. Thanks for the tips, Joy. I’ll be glad to learn more about visualization.

Comments are closed.