The Real Rain Man

He read and photographically memorized nearly 12 000 books, reading each page of an open book simultaneously – one with each eye, but he had much trouble building a block house from a given picture.

He knew so many plays and music pieces with absolute precision that he would be able to tell if an instrument was one note off in a philharmonic orchestra, but he couldn’t make heads nor tails of simple poetry.

To see him you can tell he has disabilities in some areas, but to hear him blows you away with his incredibly outstanding knowledge of facts and figures from an amazing array of topics.

Who was this man?  He’ was the real Rain Man, Kim Peek.

Here’s a quote from someone who once met him:

I met Kim when I was young, I remember being at an assembly. He would ask a child for their name, he would then tell them there phone number. When asked how he did it, he said that he would think of all the listings in the phone book, and then figure out which addresses were in the elementary school boundary. So not only did he have the phone book memorized, but also, all zip codes in the area, perhaps all street names and their geographic locations, and school district boundaries.

Wow!

What he can do is outstanding in an of itself, but what’s even more outstanding is the thought that the human brain is capable of doing what he did.  And if he could do all of these things, is there some way for us to tap into these abilities inside ourselves?

It’s an interesting thought, don’t you think?

Take a look at the video below to begin to see what I mean.  This is the second in a series of 5 (unfortunately the first one is not available).

Though he passed away less than 3 months ago at the age of 58, these videos still give you a glimpse into the mind of this amazing man.  Enjoy.

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