"Rain Man" was the title of the film by American director Barry Levinson, the main character of which was an eccentric autistic genius named Raymond. But few people know that the hero of the popular picture had a real prototype named Kim Peak, who amazed others with his unique abilities.
Live computer
Kim knew by heart the Encyclopedia Britannica, train and plane timetables around the world. An atlas of roads, a calendar for two thousand years, biographies of all his favorite composers and writers easily fit into his head.
This man could easily cite thousands of poems and prose pages, it was not difficult for him to multiply four-digit numbers in his mind, his brain seemed to be equipped with a computer and a powerful search engine that made it possible to easily extract the necessary information.
But the genius never learned how to brush his teeth, dress, tie shoelaces on his shoes, relieve himself, shop in supermarkets and cook food.
In these everyday matters, he - an adult American named Kim Peak - resembled a two-year-old child. He was poorly oriented in space, was terrified of the street and strangers, he held on to his parents all the time, and therefore gave the impression of an absolutely helpless person and aroused the pity of others.
This is how he appeared before the venerable American screenwriter Barry Morrow, for whom there were a dozen excellent paintings. The owner of phenomenal memory and other unique abilities, Kim Peak made such a strong impression on the master of the pen that he wrote the script for the film "Rain Man" in a month, directed by Barry Levinson.
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The screenwriter did not hide that he borrowed many of the features of the protagonist from Kim. In order to better study the behavior and habits of his character, he simply settled in the house of the Peaks, which allowed him to create an interesting and memorable image of Raymond. Dustin Hoffman shone in this role, the image of his pragmatic brother Charlie was embodied on the screen by Tom Cruise. The brothers' extraordinary adventures helped them get to know each other and feel a touching sense of kinship.
The name of the film comes from the similarity of the pronunciation of the name Raymond (Raymond) and the phrase rain man ("rain man"). Charlie remembered that as a child, when he was scared, the mysterious "rain man" came to him and sang songs to him, soothing and cradling him. Having got to know his brother better, Charlie realized that it was Raymond, who, calling his name indistinctly, turned in his memories into a wonderful "rain man".
Ingenious savant
After the huge success of the film and the waterfall of film awards that befell the creators of the tape, Mr. Peak also gained worldwide fame.
Glory miraculously changed the character of the savant (from the French savant - "expert", "scientist"). So it is customary to call people with abnormalities in the brain and phenomenal abilities. The fame has made Mr. Peak a media star. Journalists devoted hundreds of articles to him, calling Kim a "brilliant savant." TV producers invited him to numerous talk shows, students wanted to see him in their audiences.
And a miracle happened: Kim broke up with shyness, became sociable, gained self-confidence, and appeared with pleasure in various places. When passers-by stopped him on the street and asked questions, Kim willingly answered them, did not refuse an autograph to anyone, demonstrating a subtle sense of humor.
The genius did not resist the desire of specialists to study his brain and understand how he can absorb and store such a volume of information. Doctors came to the conclusion that Kim's brain is not designed like that of the vast majority of normal people. In particular, the tomograph recorded the absence of the corpus callosum (a powerful bundle of nerve fibers), which provides communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Such a defect is extremely rare, but by no means always accompanied by functional impairments.
Scientists suggested that some additional, reserve, and not yet explored channels of interaction between the hemispheres appeared in Kim's brain.
Perhaps this allows them to work as one giant hemisphere, combining under one "roof" those functions that are normally divided. If this assumption is correct, then some of his talents Kim owes to this anomaly.
Psychologists also studied Kim's abilities. They all agreed on the abstract conclusion that Kim received extraordinary abilities "as compensation for his inferiority."
It is interesting that already in the first months after Kim's birth, the doctors diagnosed the boy with a disappointing diagnosis: mental disability - and tactfully suggested that his parents send him to a special boarding school. Note resisted the advice of the Aesculapians and left the child in the family. They hoped that they could somehow adapt it to real life.
For the first time, unusual abilities appeared in Kim when he was less than two years old. At the family meal, the father, as usual, was reading his favorite newspaper, and suddenly realized that the son sitting next to him was reading the news with him. Since that time, reading has become a favorite pastime of Kim.
He admitted that by the age of 20 he had read about 10 thousand books. And not only read, but could easily quote any of them. All of them are miraculously recorded in his memory. It took the boy a few seconds to read and memorize the page. He “went through” thick volumes in just a couple of hours, and years later could easily reproduce what he had read by heart.
Contact with the world
People with extraordinary abilities in all ages have attracted increased attention. But it was not until the 19th century that scientists turned their attention to the savants and examined their outstanding abilities. And the first article on this topic came from the pen of John Down in 1887.
The scientist noted the connection of the mathematical abilities of the subjects with their inherent amazing power of memory. As an example, he cited the case when Savant could literally quote any passage from the multi-page "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon.
It should be noted that if at the beginning of his life, Kim absorbed any information indiscriminately, then in adulthood his interests extended only to his favorite topics. He gave his greatest preference to world and American history, and he was also interested in religious treatises, sports, cinema, theater, geography, space exploration, fiction and classical music.
Kim could not stand hard rock and indistinct rap, calling these musical directions "aggressive and annoying", and he got the greatest pleasure from the works of Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi, called them "bright and clean." In communicating with musicologists, Kim amazed them with the depth of knowledge.
He could tell where and when the work was written and first performed, named the name of the composer and quite professionally discussed the peculiarities of the musical form and tonality of the works. And in the last years of his life, Kim became addicted to the piano and began to perform his favorite pieces himself.
Kim's adaptation to the realities of life has helped to find hope for other parents of the savants. They realized that if you carefully and subtly treat the phenomenal abilities of their children, do not dismiss them as annoying flies, then their talent will manifest. With its help, an unhealthy person can establish contact with the outside world and compensate for the consequences of his illness. This path is extremely difficult, since it requires self-sacrifice, patience and hard work from the family.
The efforts of Kim's parents were embodied in the fact that their son from a timid recluse turned into a world celebrity and lived a busy life full of bright events. Over the past 20 years, he has flown 3 million miles and interacted with thousands of people. Died Kim Pewter (as scientists jokingly called him) on December 19, 2009 from a heart attack in Salt Lake City, two years before the sixtieth anniversary.
Scientists examined Kim's brain and found the following: a number of brain fragments in the deceased savant are significantly larger than in ordinary people. They also confirmed that Kim's right and left hemispheres are not separated at all, but form a single block. In addition, the doctors concluded that Kim had a congenital pathology of the cerebellum.
Neurosurgeon Jim Ryder, who was involved in studying Kim's brain, stated:
- While we can not solve the secret of the unique abilities of the savants, but we are on the way to this. I believe that the brain of a healthy person possesses a mechanism for managing storage facilities, where millions of "boxes" with information are located, and is capable of putting into the appropriate "box" what is needed at the moment. But the savants do not have such a mechanism and such "boxes". They live, as it were, in a storehouse of their memories, surrounded by their treasures, be they numbers, names, arithmetic operations, paintings by artists, sounds of music and words. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of them behave inappropriately and look (in the opinion of healthy people) eccentric. I am sure that if we still solve the secret of the "rain people", there will be a real chance to dramatically increase the intellectual capabilities of normal people.
Vladimir PETROV