Mental Calculators: Unusual Abilities in Complex Mental Calculations

[markov4]

Hi there, i told this to a friend but he only looked at me weirdly so the internet seems proper to post such a strange story.

My post relates to people who have incredible abilities at mental calculations, autistic savants or anything of the kind.

Last year around August i was sitting in a cafe with two of my friends and we were laughing about something. At that moment i looked up towards the ceiling and suddenly i had saw 'something' that i don't how to explain. What i saw was a multitude of shapes in a hazy orange type of tinge. Three shapes stood out amongst them all, a square, triangle and then a circle. There were two three digit numbers in the square and triangle, and at that instant i 'pictured' the answer if the two were to be multiplied, in the circle and i just knew it was the answer. At the same time i was over come by this feeling of 'knowing', of 'clarity', I'm not sure how to describe it, but you know when you're on a roll in solving difficult maths problems and you reach this type of 'high' well it was like that but much better. Also at that moment, i thought back to some problems i had at the time in solving maths related problems and it all made perfect sense to me, everything was just 'clear' when i thought about it. The shapes each had different colours, but the orange tinge 'covered' them all.

Then in a brief moment, i suddenly felt as if the 'vision' i had was suddenly drifting away and i somehow tried to 'hold' onto it but it just 'faded' away and i was back again at staring at my friends. It happened so fast they didn't notice, what felt to me, that i had zoned out for a short while.

Ok i know that sounds very strange, i don't know how to describe it, i don't know whether i was going crazy at the time (i was only 20 then), I'm a rational person but i don't know what this was. I don't have autism nor any other related syndrome. By medical standards i guess I'm healthy, and I'm just an average student in maths (studying engineering). I'd say i have a rather good memory, but that's about it. Thing is, this has been bothering me since then, and like i said i tried telling one of my friends a while ago, one of them who was sitting there, but he didn't seem to take me seriously and didn't say much.

I know such people exist who have unusual abilities at performing complex mental calculations, and i know of one guy in the UK who's an autistic savant, who can do complex calculations, and he also has an amazing memory too (i saw a documentary on him, he learned Icelandic in a week!), i emailed him a few months ago but he never replied. So while i was very hesistant in posting on some online forum i figured i don't have anything to lose.

So is anyone familiar with this type of stuff? Anywhere that i can be directed to, to 'find' out more, some explanation of what happened to me? I've tried to analyse all possible reasons that lead to what happened, and i simply don't know what...the only conclusion i can come up with is that my mind/brain imagined it all or something. It's only happened once btw, never as a child, only then when i was 20, I've tried 'thinking' it back but nothing's ever happened. It's either that my brain/mind brought this about somehow, a delusion of sorts, or i have some sort of feint potential in complex mental calculation that has never fully developed. I know that guy in the UK sees numbers as some form of colours, so I'm not too far off.

 

[Sorry!]

Hi there, i told this to a friend but he only looked at me weirdly so the internet seems proper to post such a strange story.

My post relates to people who have incredible abilities at mental calculations, autistic savants or anything of the kind.

Last year around August i was sitting in a cafe with two of my friends and we were laughing about something. At that moment i looked up towards the ceiling and suddenly i had saw 'something' that i don't how to explain. What i saw was a multitude of shapes in a hazy orange type of tinge. Three shapes stood out amongst them all, a square, triangle and then a circle. There were two three digit numbers in the square and triangle, and at that instant i 'pictured' the answer if the two were to be multiplied, in the circle and i just knew it was the answer. At the same time i was over come by this feeling of 'knowing', of 'clarity', I'm not sure how to describe it, but you know when you're on a roll in solving difficult maths problems and you reach this type of 'high' well it was like that but much better. Also at that moment, i thought back to some problems i had at the time in solving maths related problems and it all made perfect sense to me, everything was just 'clear' when i thought about it. The shapes each had different colours, but the orange tinge 'covered' them all.

Then in a brief moment, i suddenly felt as if the 'vision' i had was suddenly drifting away and i somehow tried to 'hold' onto it but it just 'faded' away and i was back again at staring at my friends. It happened so fast they didn't notice, what felt to me, that i had zoned out for a short while.

Ok i know that sounds very strange, i don't know how to describe it, i don't know whether i was going crazy at the time (i was only 20 then), I'm a rational person but i don't know what this was. I don't have autism nor any other related syndrome. By medical standards i guess I'm healthy, and I'm just an average student in maths (studying engineering). I'd say i have a rather good memory, but that's about it. Thing is, this has been bothering me since then, and like i said i tried telling one of my friends a while ago, one of them who was sitting there, but he didn't seem to take me seriously and didn't say much.

I know such people exist who have unusual abilities at performing complex mental calculations, and i know of one guy in the UK who's an autistic savant, who can do complex calculations, and he also has an amazing memory too (i saw a documentary on him, he learned Icelandic in a week!), i emailed him a few months ago but he never replied. So while i was very hesistant in posting on some online forum i figured i don't have anything to lose.

So is anyone familiar with this type of stuff? Anywhere that i can be directed to, to 'find' out more, some explanation of what happened to me? I've tried to analyse all possible reasons that lead to what happened, and i simply don't know what...the only conclusion i can come up with is that my mind/brain imagined it all or something. It's only happened once btw, never as a child, only then when i was 20, I've tried 'thinking' it back but nothing's ever happened. It's either that my brain/mind brought this about somehow, a delusion of sorts, or i have some sort of feint potential in complex mental calculation that has never fully developed. I know that guy in the UK sees numbers as some form of colours, so I'm not too far off.

Thats cool, too bad it's never happened again. In order for me to get to the point now where I can multiple most in my head took A LOT of practice. (My calculus teacher made the class do I think it was 5 minutes of mental multiplications there was a chart and you had to fill it out and see how many you got correct after. At first I made so many mistakes but by the end of the year I could finish the entire chart with close to 0 mistakes everytime.)

 

[Borek]

i was sitting in a cafe with two of my friends and we were laughing about something. At that moment i looked up towards the ceiling and suddenly i had saw 'something' that i don't how to explain. What i saw was a multitude of shapes in a hazy orange type of tinge.

Must have been in Amsterdam.

 

[markov4]

Thats cool, too bad it's never happened again. In order for me to get to the point now where I can multiple most in my head took A LOT of practice. (My calculus teacher made the class do I think it was 5 minutes of mental multiplications there was a chart and you had to fill it out and see how many you got correct after. At first I made so many mistakes but by the end of the year I could finish the entire chart with close to 0 mistakes everytime.)

I guess like with anything, practicing something, you'll eventually master it. I'll give such methods a go on my summer break.

Must have been in Amsterdam.

lol no :p but for the record, I've never had any type of drugs.

 

[Monocerotis]

I think you should go see a doctor, no joke.

It sounds like you have Charles Bonnett syndrome

 

[2h2o]

Thats cool, too bad it's never happened again. In order for me to get to the point now where I can multiple most in my head took A LOT of practice. (My calculus teacher made the class do I think it was 5 minutes of mental multiplications there was a chart and you had to fill it out and see how many you got correct after. At first I made so many mistakes but by the end of the year I could finish the entire chart with close to 0 mistakes everytime.)

Do you still have this chart? Or can you describe in more detail what was on the chart? (e.g. random two-digit pairs to multiply, three-digit pairs, etc.) I'd be interested in seeing it: mental exercise and practice are good things!

 

[markov4]

I think you should go see a doctor, no joke.

It sounds like you have Charles Bonnett syndrome

I read up on that, and it sounds sort of similar actually, thanks.